Vodafone’s internet of things world takes shape from Ireland

22 May 2018

Asavie CTO Tom Maher with Vodafone Ireland IoT country manager Debbie Power. Image: Naoise Culhane

Irish tech is at the heart of Vodafone’s expansion into IoT.

Fixed and mobile telecoms giant Vodafone is working with Irish tech companies to make the internet of things (IoT) world a reality.

It recently emerged that Vodafone has partnered with enterprise mobility firm Asavie to allow Irish-based companies to access IoT Express, a scalable and secure SIM-based IoT connectivity over narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) networks.

Vodafone IoT Express unlocks enterprise-grade IoT tools for everyone and is compatible with as little as one SIM. It is suitable for both large businesses starting a new trial or a smaller company beginning to develop their IoT capabilities with small investment.

“Vodafone IoT Express is an example of how Asavie is working with a global leading mobile network operator to allow enterprises of all sizes to immediately deploy and scale their IoT projects,” said Ralph Shaw, CEO of Asavie.

“By securely managing network connections from the edge to the cloud, and eliminating the typical delays in deployment and revenue generation, enterprises can immediately benefit from the IoT economy.”

Build fast and wide

The telecoms giant has also partnered with Dublin-based Wia, a previous Siliconrepublic.com Start-up of the Week, to deploy the Wia platform. This will enable developers and companies to rapidly build prototypes and get their solutions into production quicker.

The Wia platform, which is currently used in more than 85 countries, takes care of the device management, data capture and real-time analysis that typically requires months of software development at a huge cost to the business.

“At Vodafone Ireland, we are committed to ensuring our customers can conveniently access the vast array of benefits provided by IoT connectivity,” said Debbie Power, Vodafone Ireland’s IoT manager.

“This new offering makes it easier than ever for companies of all sizes to quickly roll out their innovative IoT projects, benefit from the advances in deployment and gain the intelligence needed to drive their business decisions. Vodafone IoT Express delivers a secure and scalable on-demand IoT service to all customers in a very cost-effective way.”

Updated, 8.05am, 22 May 2018: The main image caption has been updated to correctly identify Tom Maher, CTO of Asavie. An earlier version of this article mistakenly identified him as Ralph Shaw, CEO of Asavie.

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

editorial@siliconrepublic.com