Iot Service Competition

Competition among domestic telecom service providers about an IoT blue ocean is expected to accelerate general consumers’ smart lives.
Competition among domestic telecom service providers about an IoT blue ocean is expected to accelerate general consumers’ smart lives.

 

Competition in the mobile communications market is rapidly moving to the internet of things or IoT. The IoT is a growing market in its early stage and has a huge number of subscription lines that reaches hundreds of millions. Competition among telecom service providers about an IoT blue ocean is expected to accelerate general consumers’ smart lives because the competition is creating new services everywhere from home to industrial facilities.

According to the telecommunication industry on November 24, SK Telecom launched full-fledged IoT services after building the nationwide Lora network, an IoT-only network. The company believes that it will be able to make profits in the IoT business beginning in 2018. They launched the Zipper, a location tracking handset as the first service based on Lora.

The service allows the Zipper attached to school buses to notify parents of real-time locations so the parents can check the locations of their children through the smartphone application. The device was well received by consumers as SK Telecom already sold out the first 2000 units and began second production of the device.

In addition, SK Telecom built a “smart construction” solution to prevent industrial accidents at the site to build Purgio at Wirye New City with Daewoo Engineering and Construction by applying the IoT to construction sites. Smart Construction is a solution which can immediately cope with an accident by installing intelligent CCTVs, gas sensors, vibration sensors and fire detection sensors on structures at construction sites based on an IoT network and SingPlug, an IoT platform.

KT is also introducing IoT services using LTE-M technology. KT commercialized the “Cold Chain” Service that uses the IoT to monitor delivery status of and quality changes in products sensitive to temperature changes such as fresh food or blood in real time. KT explains that the service is suitable mainly for the costly logistics market. The Cold Chain Service will be commercialized for the first time through Shinil Delivery, a sample transportation company. KT will continue to develop its additional functions and expand it into approximately 30 medical foundations in Korea.

Earlier KT is also working on a pilot project for the remote sensing of city gas using LTE-M with ChambitWonju City Gas in Wonju, Gangwon Province. Now the service can save city gas companies gasmen’s visits to houses to check gas usage as the service is able to meter it remotely.

LG U+ which is strengthening NB-IoT cooperation with Huawei, is focusing on the home IoT. The IoT Energy Meter Service, a representative service of LG U+’s home IoT, has enjoyed a significant increase in the number of subscribers as many people worried about huge electric charges due to unusual heat waves this past summer. This service informs its subscribers of not only current electricity usage and current progressive stages but also as real-time current charges and expected monthly charges. Sales of this service grew about 2.5-fold from July through August.  
 

 

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