Taipei, Taiwan, Aug. 2, 2016: SIGFOX, the world’s leading provider of dedicated communications service for the Internet of Things (IoT), and UnaBiz, an IoT network operator in Asia, joined French and Taiwanese officials in announcing creation of a global Internet of Things testbed in Taiwan.
The testbed will provide global IoT connectivity to Taiwan’s huge electronics manufacturing industry and demonstrate multiple applications and use cases, said a press release.
The announcement was made at a launch event in Taipei with C K Lee, Taiwan’s Minister of Economy; Benoit Guidée, Director of the French Office in Taipei; SIGFOX Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ludovic Le Moan; UnaBiz CEO Henri Bong and a panel of industry and government experts, including Chaney Ho, Advantech president; Wei-Bin Lee, CIO of Taipei City, and Ming-Whei Feng, Dean of the Smart Network System Institute of the Institute for Information Industry.
In addition to supporting Taiwan’s goal of becoming the “Silicon Valley of Asia,” where new and disruptive technologies thrive, the nationwide network and testbed will also provide to SIGFOX the benefits of Taiwanese design and manufacturing expertise as it scales globally, Guidée said. Taiwan’s large high-technology manufacturing sector has extensive experience in developing high-quality products at competitive prices.
UnaBiz, which announced only three weeks ago a strategic partnership with ENGIE and SIGFOX to deploy the network in Singapore, will lead the network deployment in Taiwan, which is expected to have nationwide coverage in early 2018.
“This extension to Taiwan is key in our regional development strategy, because Taiwan has the largest ecosystem of devices and solutions to accelerate the adoption of IoT use cases globally,” said Henri Bong, CEO of UnaBiz.
With this rollout, Taiwan will be the 23rd country globally, the second in Asia and the fourth country in the Asia Pacific region to have SIGFOX’s two-way IoT coverage, which provides low-cost, energy-efficient connectivity for countless devices that will make up the Internet of Things.
Taiwan’s six largest cities or districts, containing half the country’s population of 23.5 million, will have coverage by mid-2017.
“This collaboration between Taiwanese electronics companies, which are among the most competitive and efficient in the world, and SIGFOX will strengthen the SIGFOX ecosystem as it speeds learning and the implementation of IoT design and use cases,” Le Moan said. “It also will provide demonstrations of how SIGFOX’s seamless IoT network can foster unprecedented industrial manufacturing efficiencies that could benefit companies everywhere.”
Image Credit: SIGFOX