Ericsson targets accelerated IoT rollouts with cloud platform

Ericsson has announced the launch of an IoT “as a service” offering in the form of its IoT Accelerator.

The IoT Accelerator, Ericsson claims, combines a variety of facets which together provide a holistic IoT management solution. It says the platform, which is available as a service, is intended to enable customers in sectors such as public safety, utilities, transport and smart cities to overcome cost and complexity challenges. The aim, according to Ericsson, is to help users rapidly develop and deploy new IoT solutions.

Built into the IoT Accelerator comes capabilities such as data management, billing, device management, connectivity services and analytics – with an SDK and self-service capabilities in the offing but not yet available. Ericsson will be supporting a global rollout of IoT Accelerator by ensuring it adheres to specific regional or industry regulatory requirements for data housing and management, while also providing regional business labs that can, it claims, execute global capabilities locally.

Based on the Ericsson Cloud, the IoT Accelerator will harness Ericsson’s Cellular for Massive IT software and will support NB-IoT, LTE Cat-M1 and EC-GSM-IoT platforms for LP-WAN.

Speaking about the launch, Ericsson’s Head of Industry and Society, Orvar Hurtig says smart city-related industries will be the first target for launch when it arrives in Q3. “We will initially focus on public safety, utilities, transport and smart cities customers, continuously adjusting to their needs and feedback, and improving ease of use and delivery speed through a DevOps approach to software development,” he said.