Verizon and Sigfox announce San Francisco IoT initiatives

San Francisco is set to become America’s top IoT hub as two major developments were announced for the city.

Verizon has unveiled its global IoT strategy at its San Francisco Innovation Centre, with the launch of ThingSpace, an open platform for developers, technology partners and end-users to build and run IoT systems. Meanwhile, French IoT vendor Sigfox has announced a partnership with the City’s local authorities in order to run the first smart city programmes in America in 2016.

In support of Verizon’s IoT push it has announced a range of new initiatives including a new dedicated network (based on LTE) for connected devices. It has also added new lighting, video and traffic management apps to it smart cities range and launched a new analytics engine for use on the big data from IoT networks. In addition, it unveiled Verizon Track and Trace, which aims to monitor supply chains and improve safety in the pharmaceutical industry.

Verizon claims it has 1,000 IoT channel partners and revenues of $495 million a year coming from various telematics projects.

It is piloting, with its biggest partner Intel, an agricultural platform that uses sensors, big data and automated sprinklers to monitor and control the environment at a 1,000 acre winery in California’s Monterey County. By making better use of water and energy it can cut costs through disease prevent and promote healthier crop yields through environmental control.

Meanwhile, the commercial launch of Verizon’s Intelligent Track and Trace Solution was promised for spring 2016. A new system to help colleges and universities cut their carbon footprint by a fifth was unveiled. The scheme uses Verizon Share to run the Innova Electric Vehicle Car Share fleet. It is currently being tested at pilot sites at include the University of Pittsburgh, Colorado State University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“Continued innovation in smart cities, connected cars and wearables demonstrates that IoT is the future for how we will live and work,” said Mike Lanman, senior VP of Enterprise Products at Verizon.

Meanwhile, San Francisco is the to be the first city in America to be on Sigfox’s Internet of Things (IoT) scheme as the city aims to become greener.

The City of San Francisco and Sigfox have announced a partnership that will use the IoT to create cheap, energy-efficient and two-way connectivity for smart city programmes run by the local authority.