A World of Opportunity

Ronan Le Bras explains how Orange is harnessing the Mobile Internet of Thhings to further expand its service offerings

Ronan Le Bras, Head of Technical Strategy, Wireless Networks, Orange; GSMA EC-GSM-IoT Group Chair

With mobile operations in almost 30 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Orange is one of the most diverse telecoms groups in the world. Orange serves mobile subscribers in markets as diverse as France, a highly-developed and tech-savvy economy, and Mali, an economy based around agriculture and fishing. Yet Orange believes both types of countries could benefit from embracing the Mobile Internet of Things (MIoT).

Ronan Le Bras, Head of Technical Strategy, Wireless Networks at Orange, and Chairman of the EC-GSM-IoT Group, anticipates that both developed and developing countries will use the MIoT to improve agriculture, energy, transport, security and many other aspects of modern life. Although each solution will be tailored to the specific needs of the target market, he points out that the cost effectiveness of low power wide area (LPWA) connectivity provided by the MIoT has global appeal.

“Clearly, there are opportunities in both kinds of markets,” Ronan Le Bras says. “We are starting to see some segments, such as energy, transport, agriculture and security, in emerging markets, where LPWA would make sense and would help the countries to develop. As the population in Africa grows, for example, the region will rely heavily on smart energy solutions to meet its needs.”

Orange expects LPWA connectivity to accelerate the development of smart cities in both developed and developing countries. “Metering is a key use case, but there is much more to smart cities than just metering,” says Ronan Le Bras. “Cities need all kinds of sensors monitoring population movements, traffic, and the environment.”

Different markets, different technologies

Some of the emerging markets where Orange operates have yet to issue spectrum licenses for LTE networks. In such markets, EC-GSM-IoT is an option, as it is a standardised MIoT technology that is designed to be overlaid on existing GSM networks. In Europe, 4G networks can easily be adapted to support LTE-M, which is also in the MIoT family of technologies.

Now that EC-GSM-IoT, LTE-M and NB-IoT have been standardised by 3GPP, Ronan Le Bras says the operator community needs to work towards establishing roaming services that will make it simple for connected cars, wearables and other mobile devices to travel across borders without losing connectivity. “We also need to identify a minimum set of frequency bands that allow the device to be connected anywhere in the world,” he adds. “Smartphones can use 10 frequency bands to stay connected everywhere, but this would not be feasible for trackers, for example, as supporting all those frequencies would increase the price and size of the device.”

Through Orange Business Services (OBS), the operator has a presence in most countries around the world. Acting as a systems integrator, OBS has long used conventional cellular technologies to enable connected machines and vehicles to roam across borders. For example, OBS is working with Splitsecnd, a tech start-up based in the U.S., which has developed a portable emergency response plug-in crash detection device that automatically calls for help in the event of an accident. The solution, which uses an Orange SIM card embedded within the Splitsecnd device, is available across the world.

Orange has also been a pioneer of LPWA technologies. Between 2011 and 2016, Orange operated a joint venture in France with Veolia Water, called m2ocity, to provide local authorities with a “complete turnkey service based on an ultralow consumption radio network to local authorities.” The network now connects 1.4 million smart meters in almost 1,500 French cities.

Today, OBS continues to provide businesses with end-to-end IoT solutions that include data analytics and systems integration, as well as core telecoms services. It employs a wide range of connectivity technologies, including cellular and Wi-Fi, to enable IoT solutions for its customers. Ronan Le Bras sees an ongoing role for some LPWA technologies that use unlicensed spectrum, such as LoRa®. “We think the solutions in unlicensed and licensed spectrum will be complementary to each other,” he says. “Orange selected LoRa® technology as its first LPWA technology, but there are some advantages that will persist even after the standardised technology is available. For example, where an enterprise wants to keep tight control, LoRa® technology can be deployed in a very localised area with a small, low cost gateway. But everything to do with mobility will probably go to the cellular standards.”

Orange continues to see strong demand for cellular connectivity to enable the IoT. In France, for example, Orange reported that its mobile M2M (machine-to-machine) connections had climbed to more than 5.1 million at the end of the third quarter 2016, up from 2.2 million at the end of the third quarter 2014.

Key challenges for 2017

However, there is plenty of work for Orange and other mobile operators to do before they can realise the full potential of the MIoT. “We need to reduce the certification time and the cost of handling SIMs in our system,” says Ronan Le Bras. “It is the overall cost of running the solution that will be charged to our customers and this will need to be reduced as well as the cost of the access technologies.”

Orange also believes there is a need to reduce fragmentation in other parts of the value chain, notably the service layer. “End customers don’t just ask for the access technology,” says Ronan Le Bras. “They want a flexible solution that they can integrate into their processes quickly, so there is a need for standard protocols above the network layer. We need a unified service layer, such as OneM2M (1). That is as important as the choice of the access technology. It needs to be a low cost solution overall.”

Although Ronan Le Bras believes that some enterprises will wait for costs to fall further before adopting LPWA solutions, he expects the MIoT to make considerable progress in 2017. He notes that the mobile industry has moved quickly to meet the demand for low power wide area connectivity. “2016 was the year when the standards were published. 2017 will be the year when the Mobile IoT will be available, fully-tested and with the end-to-end solution,” he adds. “That normally takes 18 months, but for the MIoT the lead time will be closer to one year, which is a good achievement for the industry, for module makers, chipset makers and operators.”

(1) OneM2M is a set of technical specifications designed to provide for a common M2M service layer that facilitates interoperability between different IoT solutions.