Chorus anticipates high-bandwidth IoT demand

Research from Chorus and the NZ IoT Alliance shows demand for high bandwidth IoT. 2degrees uses its Flex portal to reboot its wholesale operation.

Chorus anticipates high-bandwidth IoT demand

Joe Caccioppoli says New Zealand businesses are rapidly adopting high-bandwidth IoT applications. He says close to half of major customers are either already investing in the technology or planning to do so in the near future.

Caccioppoli is Chorus’ head of Growth and New Business. His job is to find new lines of revenue for the network operator now that its fibre network rollout is largely complete.

High-bandwidth IoT is proving to be one of the most promising avenues as Chorus looks to get more from its fibre assets. While IoT itself is not directly regulated, in practice Chorus’ IoT portfolio is a wholesale business sold through partners.

Video

The most obvious application of high-bandwidth IoT is when customers need to used high definition video.

Caccioppoli says until now it has been the major use case. “It gives Auckland Transport, for example, the ability to accurately monitor traffic congestion and traffic flows in real time. It allows them to make fast decisions and optimise traffic flows around the city”.

Another key application is security, he says police can use high definition video for public safety and address issues in real time.

Real time

It’s no accident the phrase ‘real time’ comes up again and again when discussing high bandwidth IoT. Having a constant high definition video stream cuts reaction times considerably and it doesn’t have to be humans keeping watch. Increasingly customers are using AI and machine learning apps to monitor video feeds and respond where necessary.

This is done in a creative way by Lumo, a company that operates digital billboards.

Caccioppoli says Lumo uses the technology to maximise the user experience. “First, the high bandwidth means the billboards can show images with exceptional quality. They can update what they are showing in real time.

Watching you, watching me

“They have billboards with cameras that watch the people looking at the billboards and are able to monitor their reactions. They can see how many sets of eyes connect with the messages on the billboards and can provide their customers with useful demographics. They can then respond in real time and show other images to maximise impact.”

In other words, the billboard can see if its audience is interested or not and adjust its messages to better capture its attention.

Although video remains the most common use of high-bandwidth IoT, Caccioppoli says cloud computing, edge computing and AI are all applications that can take advantage of a faster, fibre connection and are increasingly being used.

Flex portal at centre of 2degrees wholesale revamp

2degrees has rebranded its whole operation. From this week the business unit will be known as 2degrees Network Partners.

Paul Mathewson, 2degrees’ chief commercial officer, says the move will give wholesale customers greater access to the telco’s network infrastructure.

There will be a greater focus on reselling telco services, this includes a mobile virtual network operator service such as the one currently run by Nova Energy on the 2degrees network.

At the core of the new offering is Flex, the self-service portal that was first developed by Vocus before that company merged with 2degrees.

Nimble

Mathewson says 2degrees' customers have told the company they needed it to be easier to access telco services, and that they wanted greater flexibility and control over the products they offer to their end-users. He says Flex meets that need and means 2degrees’ can be an open, nimble and flexible network partner.

He says: “Our goal is to put our network in our customers hands – making it easy to access, consume and manage."

As Mathewson points out, New Zealand’s MVNO market lags international trends. In Australia millions of customers use MVNOs, elsewhere they can account for a sizable market share. In New Zealand the entire MVNO sector is little more than a rounding error in the overall market statistics.

Mathewson says he expects this to change over the coming years: “We are making it far easier to launch, operate and grow a new telco business in New Zealand than it has ever been”.

2degrees buys Nokia core software

2degrees is moving to Nokia’s 5G core Registers and Shared Data Layer software as part of its network modernisation programme. The software will run on Red Hat OpenShift, a hybrid cloud platform.

Nokia Registers is made up of multiple software functions, such as Authentication Server Function, Unified Data Management, and Home Subscriber Server. The Share Data Layer or SDL is where data is stored. This is also composed of multiple software functions, like Unified Data Repository and Unstructured Data Storage Function.

The telco is also buying Nokia’s MantaRay Network Management software which, according to the marketing pitch, provides “a consolidated and automated network view for improved network monitoring and management”.

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