Thinxtra is introducing a new Partnership Program for Smart Councils, and offering it to the first 50 selected councils in Australia. This unique program provides Sigfox network coverage within 4 weeks at no cost to the Council, to bring Internet of Things solutions to the community.
Thinxtra is investing $5M into this program which includes free installation, free development kits for incubators and free connectivity for smart council application developments.
McKinsey Global Institute report estimates that the IoT will improve the global economy by $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion per year by 2025.
The Smart Council Program will bring numerous benefits, enabling applications such as infrastructure monitoring, waste management, asset tracking and environmental monitoring, as well as enabling educational and community initiatives using and teaching IoT. By joining the program, Councils can actively participate in connecting Australia to the Internet of Things global network and be at the forefront of the Smart Cities movement, joining such cities as Barcelona, San Francisco and Singapore. This will improve city services and quality of living as well as boosting innovation and creating multiple job opportunities to develop IoT solutions and benefit local communities, industries and councils.
As a case study, Coffs Harbour was the first regional city in Australia that joined forces with Thinxtra to receive free coverage for the Internet of Things. This deployment was successfully conducted in collaboration with Schneider Electric who, together with Thinxtra, are bringing IoT solutions to Coffs Harbour.
Loic Barancourt, CEO of Thinxtra: “Coffs Harbour, being a Centre of Strategic Growth and having a burgeoning business and innovation centre, was a perfect choice for us to demonstrate how IoT can help boost regional economy and business.”
The Sigfox network in Coffs Harbour took less than a week to install, thus enabling companies and individuals to connect millions of low-power devices. Local smart councils, being early IoT adopters, will be the first to benefit from the positive effect of IoT on their local economies.
About Thinxtra
Thinxtra is empowering Australia and New Zealand’s Internet of Things by deploying SIGFOX world-leading LPWAN connectivity as well as building a full ecosystem of IoT solutions and services to enable the non-connected to connect, to increase productivity, accelerate decision making, improve quality of service and solve problems in an economic and connected manner.
Thinxtra was launched in 2015 and is backed by a consortium of strategic investors including cornerstone investor Rakon Limited, a NZX-listed high-tech leader in innovation of communications technology. The network roll out in Australia and New Zealand has commenced and is on track to meet its target of covering 95% of the ANZ population with SIGFOX connectivity by the end of 2017.
