Actility reveals ThingPark solution supporting seamless integration of 3GPP and LoRaWAN™ technologies

Actility, the industry leader in Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN), today announces support for 3GPP LTE-M and NB-IoT technology within the ThingPark IoT software suite, allowing service providers to seamlessly deploy and manage networks combining LoRaWAN and NB-IoT LPWA using a single OSS/BSS, device management solution and data exposure interface. Visitors to Actility’s booth at MWC (8.0C3) will be able to see the seamlessly integrated dual-technology network in action, delivering data from LoRaWAN and 3GPP connected sensors through the same platform to a cloud host.

“Service providers are facing big challenges in integrating IoT devices on the required massively large scale, explains Actility SVP of Products, Boris Lacroix.  “At the same time as device ARPU is decreasing rapidly, the large number of transactions is increasing IT cost, OSS/BSS costs and MME/HSS licensing fees are dominating the business case, and expensive EPC upgrades are killing the early MTC revenue. Something has to change, and we believe our ThingPark EPC connector is that game changer. It will enable integrated networks, allowing operators to monetize existing R8-R11 networks and evolve towards future R13 deployments.”

The solution is available within Actility’s ThingPark IoT platform. Key features include: unified device management, with single layer provisioning for LoRaWAN and 3GPP Iot devices and automated SIM provisioning; integrated OSS/BSS offering unified connectivity management services and unified LPWA billing, traffic shaping and policy management; and data exposure through a single API, including metadata.  The result is a seamlessly integrated LPWA network powered by ThingPark, offering features such as service activation and role management, IoT offer creation and subscriber management, and order management.

“This is a key evolution for our platform,” says Actility CEO Mike Mulica, “effectively allowing our service provider customers to immediately expand their LPWA commercial services to LTE-M and NB-IoT, in addition to the existing LoRaWAN network, and always offer best in class LPWA technology going forward for all IoT use cases. We’ve always believed that LPWA was not an either-or choice between LoRaWAN and 3GPP technology, but that both are needed and will work in parallel, sometimes together, to deliver best-fit solutions for specific use cases. We’ve been inspired to turn that belief into a concrete solution within the ThingPark platform, and we’re ready to deploy it for our customers.”