Tata Comm building world’s largest IoT network in India

 A new gadget disguised as jewellery would soon be able to send discreet signals to law enforcement agencies in case a woman faces a threat. The device unlike smartphone apps would be able to send out alerts without letting the attacker know about it and would even work in basements or areas where typically there is no network connection.

The device will be part of Tata Communications’ effort to build world’s largest network connecting Internet of Things (IoT). The company is deploying an IoT network with the help of low power wide area network based on a technology called LoRa for connected devices and IoT applications across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru before rolling it out nationwide.

“Women safety is an area where our network can be of great help. Therefore, we are building a device, which will be made in India and would help improve women’s safety,” Tri Pham, chief strategy officer at Tata Communications, told BusinessLine .

 The company is in talks with partners to build this device in India. It is running trials to launch its IoT network by end of first quarter of 2016.

 IoT is getting widely adapted across sectors where enterprises and government agencies are using it to monitor electricity meters, industrial machinery, leakages in oil pipelines and even in improving the efficiency of electrical grids.

 Gartner forecasts that there will be 4.9 billion connected things globally in 2015, reaching 25 billion by 2020 — more than three times the number of people on earth today.

Tata Communications’ low power wide area network works on an unlicenced band of 865-867 MHz and, according to the company, will be far cheaper than existing GSM and CDMA networks. Instead of charging for every communication, users will be charged a fixed monthly rental per device, which could vary from 50 cents to about $4, the company said.

 Even the IoT modules required for communication between devices will be ten times cheaper than a GSM module used in mobile phones for example.

Compared with a GSM network, which typically requires about 5,000 towers to cover a city like Mumbai, the new IoT network will have coverage across Delhi NCR, Mumbai-Navi Mumbai and Bengaluru with just 500 towers.

 However, Pham insists Tata Communications will not be competing with existing networks. “Our network will be complementary to the existing GSM network as we will be focused only on device-to-device communication and the network will not be used for any voice or data communications.

The company said it has already put its towers in place and once the network roll-out is done, it will expand into other cities. “These trials are just the beginning; we intend to deploy this network across India and invite customers with IoT projects to work with us to test it, end-to-end,” Pham said.

Unlike GSM and Wi-Fi networks, the LoRa network can enable communications in deep water and up to 50 metres underground. This makes it suitable for use in metro stations and car parks.

The signal of the network is extremely strong, cutting through up to seven walls inside buildings and has a 15 km range and Tata Communications is hoping to use these attributes of the network to penetrate into the rural markets as well.

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