Taichung City Mayor Chia-lung Lin arrived in France on the 18th to exchange industry and municipal administration experiences. On the first day, he and his staff visited French IoT connectivity service provider Sigfox, and they were personally welcomed by the company’s Executive Vice President Networks and Operators Rodolphe Baronnet-Frugès, who explained the technology aspect of IoT and its application in life. Mayor Lin invited Sigfox to establish R&D center in Taichung, where IoT, Big Data and cloud technologies are introduced to transform Taichung into a smart city.
Mayor Lin led a delegation consisting of City Hall officials and industry representatives on a jam-packed 6-day visit from June 18 to 23. First stop on the itinerary was Toulouse, where they visited French IoT connectivity service provider Sigfox. After listening to the company’s briefing, Mayor Lin was introduced to hands-on experience in IoT applications in order to gain further understanding about Sigfox’s industrial application of the technology such as Airbus’s logistics tracking system and IoT Valley.
According to Mayor Lin, Sigfox is located in Toulouse in France, the home of Airbus Industrie. Sigfox supplies Airbus with manufacturing, maintenance and logistics related software design and applications; Taiwan’s advantage lies in hardware production, therefore in order to achieve smart manufacturing and become a smart city, it is imperative to reinforce software design capabilities. On the other hand, Taichung is also the hub of smart machinery and aeronautics industry in Taiwan, while Sigfox specializes in IoT applications, therefore the purpose of this visit is to understand how hardware and software come together flawlessly, as well as to foster more cooperation opportunities.
Mayor Lin remarked that the city government is striving to transform Taichung into a smart city. In particular, the Shuinan Smart City is inspired by the vision of “Smart, Low Carbon and Innovation”, featuring smart electricity meter, traffic control, healthcare, shared pole streetlight etc. He also invited Sigfox to establish a R&D center in Taichung to collaborate with local industries and build the Greater Taichung smart city together.
Sigfox’s Executive Vice President Networks and Operators Rodolphe Baronnet-Frugès indicated that the company’s unique IoT technology boasts advantages such as low cost, low power consumption and extensive global coverage, thus natural disasters including forest fires, earthquakes or tsunamis can be detected by Sigfox sensors in order to facilitate relevant authorities conduct prevention work. The future vision of Sigfox is to connect and integrate every object in life through IoT, therefore the company will launch innovative services to make people’s lives more convenient.
Rodolphe Baronnet-Frugès also suggested that Sigfox currently has approximately 360 employees, half of which are engaged in R&D projects with global partners from industries such as electronics and telecommunications as well as the government sector. Sigfox’s global coverage is over 30 countries and it is expected to reach 60 countries by 2018.
He commended Taiwan’s sophisticated technology development and the many innovative measures adopted by the public sector. Moreover, he believes that the a great deal of government services can be integrated using Sigfox’s technology, thus he hoped that the company can engage in further collaboration with the city government in the future. In addition, Sigfox’s operator in Taiwan Unabiz has already started network deployment in Taiwan's six largest cities or districts, and infrastructure will be expanded depending on the outcome.
Economic Development Bureau Director Yao-chih Lu pointed out that Taichung has a thriving precision machinery industry and 60 km industry cluster ranging from smart machinery, aeronautics, machine tools to key components. The central government is planning to develop smart machinery and aeronautics industry in Taichung and transform the city into the capital of smart machineries; with booming developments in the hardware industry, software and network support is required, hence it is hoped to understand the convenient features of IoT application in everyday life by visiting the Sigfox IoT demonstration center, and the ultimate aim is to redirect the production of all Sigfox’s products to Taiwan.
According to the Economic Development Bureau, Sigfox has accomplished the last mile in IoT application, where a global network is deployed through low cost, ultra-narrow band technology. At present, Sigfox is offering services in 20 countries worldwide, including the UK, France, Spain, US, Brazil, New Zealand and Australia, and it has created its proprietary IoT ecosystem in an effort to accomplish the goal of IoE (Internet of Everything).