Marc DeCarlo
Nokia has introduced four ready-made IoT packages to help mobile network operators go after the agriculture, livestock management, logistics, and asset management markets. Its new IoT packages – available “off-the-shelf” and “as—a-service” – will drive new revenues for operators, with “minimal investment and less risk”, it said.
The four new IoT solutions make use of Nokia’s Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING) infrastructure, which bundles global IoT connectivity, devices, applications, and support. WING is available to operators on a “pay-as-you-grow” basis, said Nokia.
Its new smart agriculture solution includes sensors and software for capturing and analysing environmental, soil and crop data to help farmers manage crops more effectively, and save costs on irrigation, pesticides and fertilisers. Nokia said it is trialing the agriculture suite with an African operator.
Meanwhile, the livestock management solution packs in tracking devices and biosensors to monitor animal health and welfare, for ranchers to gain early insight about abnormalities, and protect livestock and improve yields.
The logistics solution is for tracking the movement and condition of goods in transit to help enterprises identify predict incidents in the supply chain.
The asset management solution, which is being deployed by an unnamed consultancy according to the Finnish vendor, enables service providers to remotely monitor the status and performance of products, and provide improved service to customers.
Ankur Bhan, head of Nokia’s WING business, said: “With minimal upfront investment, an operator can now quickly get a service to market and generate IoT revenues. We expect these vertical solutions to encourage more operators to connect to Nokia WING, expanding its global footprint and broadening the range of capabilities and services that will become available. We already have several more vertically-focused as-a-Service packages in the development pipeline.”
WING is positioned as a vehicle to expedite IoT deployments and services, simplifying set-up and operations of IoT services, and accelerating time-to-market for operators. The idea is operators do not have to develop their own services and expertise, and Nokia makes money by packaging solutions up.