Sigfox’s reach has expanded to 45 countries, with Hungary and Switzerland the latest European markets to offer the low-power, wide-area connectivity.
Hungary’s Omnicell IoTnet and Switzerland’s Heliot, effectively Sigfox resellers, will be responsible for deploying the network in their respective markets, developing the ecosystem and supporting a variety of vertical channels.
Both companies will roll out the networks during the first quarter of this year, initially focussing on urban, industrial and transport use cases. Sigfox said supply chain, transportation, energy management, food, agriculture, pharmaceutical and telecare solutions could take advantage of the technology.
Malaysia, South Korea and UAE are the other markets that will offer Sigfox enabled services following today’s announcement.
The technology serves around 803 million people, covering 3.8 million square kilometres. The company is targeting a reach of 60 countries and one billion people by the end of this year.
Rodolphe Baronnet-Frugès, Executive VP of Operators at Sigfox, said: “We’re very excited to welcome these five new operators to the growing Sigfox family. We have already started to collaborate with them to expand the power of the LPWAN and strengthen our ecosystem.
“These new partnerships take us a step closer to our goal of creating a worldwide network able to support business both locally and globally, thanks to an extensive network of business partners.”
Vodafone’s IoT Barometer found Sigfox was of interest to 47 percent of companies, lagging behind cellular tech such as LTE-M (52 percent) and NB-IoT (55 percent).