Dublin’s Cellusys strikes global IoT security deal with Jersey Telecom

28 Feb 2018

London harbour, Jersey. Image: Alagz/Shutterstock

130-year-old telco JT joins forces with Cellusys.

Irish internet of things (IoT) security player Cellusys has forged an innovation partnership with one of the world’s longest established telcos, Jersey Telecom (JT).

Headquartered on the Channel Islands, JT is actually one of the world’s most active players in IoT and, according to Cellusys director and renowned tech and telecoms entrepreneur Stephen Brewer, it has a global footprint of IoT-enabled SIMs.

‘For the first time, network security is made transparent and visible to JT customers’
– STEPHEN BREWER

Brewer, who was in top form at the Enterprise Ireland stand at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona this week, was CEO of Eircell in Ireland before it was acquired by Vodafone. Early in his career, he became a board member at Apple after selling Europe’s first Mac distributor Microsense, a company he co-founded with his brother, to Steve Jobs.

JT operates across 11 global locations, employing more than 600 staff, and serving more than 1m global consumer subscribers and 2,177 active business customers.

The partnership – announced at MWC – will enable enterprise customers of JT to actually see and manage their cellular connectivity security of IoT and machine-to-machine (M2M) SIMs via an IoT security dashboard.

Alarms can be triggered in case of attacks and enhanced security filters can be applied, specific to each use case.

Full visibility of all IoT assets

Stephen-Brewer

Cellusys director Stephen Brewer. Image: Connor McKenna

Brewer explained that for the first time, signalling security is made available for enterprise customers who need full visibility and management capability over the security of their IoT fleet.

“This is an important partnership for Cellusys,” said Brewer.

“Security is a growing concern of many enterprise customers. JT and Cellusys IoT together will put enterprise customers back in control of risk management of their cellular connectivity solution with IoT Protect.

“For the first time, network security is made transparent and visible to JT customers, which only can be achieved by the teaming and close cooperation of the two companies.”

In terms of the partnership, enhanced security systems are hosted in the JT core network, granting protection to all new IoT SIMs as well as IoT devices, which are already in the field.

Brewer said that this backward compatibility is critical to bring the benefit of this innovation to millions of IoT devices.

“We are delighted to be teaming with Cellusys in rolling out an innovative, global IoT security solution,” said Tom Noel, managing director of JT International.

“Our M2M SIM solution is purpose-built to deliver the connectivity required for IoT deployments at scale. We are looking forward to taking this partnership with Cellusys IoT forward and continuing to serve our customers better with enhanced, secure connectivity, wherever they are in the world.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com