WATCHING demos by MTN and Huawei at the Africa.com conference was a wake-up call for at least one person in deep denial about the arrival of the future being some way off.
These demos suggested the future is here and most of us are already actively in it.
Readers terrified about the perceived dangers of Big Brother-style surveillance might want to stop reading. The two companies are showcasing objects connected to each other using Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT), a low power, wide area technology that can connect objects to the Internet of Things more efficiently, as a result of a stronger and more penetrative signal. MTN said on Wednesday: “Connecting these devices to the internet by means of a mobile network is where NB-IoT comes into its own.”
MTN and Huawei signed an agreement to allow their collaboration, “to happen at an exponential rate as both organisations are committed to an all-connected Africa”.
Michael Ma, president of Huawei Cloud Core's product line, said: “We are very pleased to announce our strategic co-operation with MTN in the IoT field… We look forward to a continuing close relationship with MTN to bring more IoT services to Africa.”
MTN and Huawei are showcasing a smart refrigerator, User-Based Insurance (UBI) and a smart water metering solution at the conference running at the Cape Town International Convention Centre this week. Small sensors in these “things” (fridge, car, water meter) deliver data about their performance.
Alpheus Mangale, MTN South Africa’s chief enterprise business officer, said: “We are pleased and excited by the enabling role we are playing to usher an era of enhanced connectivity in Africa.
“The IoT market is expected to grow exponentially in the next few years and MTN plans to be at the forefront of this digital revolution. We hope to enable how governments, enterprises and industries work.” The global IoT market is expected to be worth trillions of dollars by 2020 with 450 million cellular IoT connections in Africa.