Huawei, a global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, announced its vision for the Internet of Things (IoT) in Africa at the IoT Forum Africa held in Johannesburg last week. The event brought together thought leaders and showcased cutting edge technologies. Huawei was among the keynote speakers and participated in industry discussions; it shared global experience in supporting telecoms companies’ in the IoT market. Huawei also showcased several IoT demonstrations; these include the Huawei OceanConnect IoT platform, partner ecosystems and NB-IoT wireless technology; Smart Home, Connected Car, Smart-Water Metering and Animal Tracking solutions. Global IoT Partnerships Just a few days ago, Huawei co-celebrated the 25th World Water Day with ShenZhen Water and China Telecom to bring the world’s first commercial NB-IoT based Smart Water solution to market. ShenZhen Water has deployed approximately 1200 NB-IoT enabled smart water meters. Other examples of Huawei’s work with its partners in IoT are: the Smart Home with Telefonica in Peru, Connected Car with TRUE Thailand and Smart Parking with Shanghai China Telecom. African IoT Partnnerships Huawei has been working closely with operators to bring best IoT solutions to Africa. Huawei’s IoT Marketing Director David Hoelscher who was a keynote speaker at the IoT Forum Africa 2017 says, “This year Huawei has made a lot of great progress with our customers to prepare for commercial deployment in South Africa, it’s our hope South Africans will benefit from IoT services soon.” Last year MTN and Huawei co-launched their IoT strategy and showcased three live demos at AfricaCom 2016 in Cape Town. Michael Ma, President of Huawei Cloud Core Network Product Line says, “Africa has a huge potential in the IoT market due to its large market and rapid network growth. We look forward to continuing our close relationship with MTN to bring more IoT services to Africa.” IoT as a Service: Huawei’s OceanConnect GLocal Ecosystem To build a customized African IoT solution and enable operators to provide IoT as a service to verticals, Huawei is using its ‘GLocal’ ecosystem philosophy. “GLocal means using Huawei’s global experience and engagement with leading international vendors and partnering with local players to cultivate a Local ecosystem,” explains David Hoelscher. Huawei hopes to help operators build their own GLocal ecosystems. Huawei is willing to recommend its partners in different industries to African telecos and open channels for communication between operators and vertical industries. Hoelscher uses Huawei’s OceanConnect platform to explain, “Huawei OceanConnect is an open ecosystem built on IoT, cloud computing, and Big Data technologies. With the IoT Connection Management Platform at its core; OceanConnect provides over 170 open APIs and serial Agent software to promote app release, simplify device access, and guarantee network connection. Right now, Huawei OceanConnect ecosystem have more than 100 partners all over the world.” IoT OpenLab Huawei will soon build an IoT OpenLab in South Africa to enable more innovative IoT solutions for its partners in Africa. It will provide a test and certification environment. Devices and software applications created can be “pre-certified” for interoperability and turn-key deployment by end-customers. This will allow Huawei’s partners, like MTN, to develop new services with a very quick time to market. Staff Writer
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei showed off its new internet of things ( IoT ) technology at the IoT Forum Africa conference held in Johannesburg last week . Technologies demonstrated by the firm include its OceanConnect IoT network and NarrowBand - IoT wireless network , as as well as smart home , connected car , animal tracking and smart water metering solutions . It also has plans to build an IoT lab in South Africa to create innovative IoT solutions for use across the African continent .