What to expect from IoT in South Africa in 2023

2023 will be the year in which a sizable segment of South Africans will start to embrace Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

According to South Africa’s biggest provider of IoT services, Sigfox South Africa (SA), 2023 will see the start of true IoT commoditisation, unlocking more widespread adoption of solutions.

IoT is an umbrella term used for large networks of devices fitted with Internet-connected sensors that can report valuable data to their owners.

These systems benefit applications where real-time status and location monitoring are critical — like ecommerce, logistics, utilities, agriculture, health, and security.

“Value propositions have now been clearly proven across multiple sectors, and disruptive IoT solutions have to be adopted and integrated into major organisations globally,” Sigfox SA said.

Sigfox believes that the IoT market is at an inflection point, where there is widespread availability of cost-effective, high-quality solutions and service providers and national, business-grade IoT networks to unlock massive IoT deployments.

“We will start to see these solutions move out of the ‘Early Adopters’ stage and into the ‘Early Majority’ stage, a natural progression as depicted in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle model.”

According to Sigfox SA chief commercial officer Sumeshin Naidoo, Sigfox saw devices on its South Africa network grow by over 10,000 every month, suggesting this boom is already at hand.

The company’s technical teams must constantly investigate and develop smarter network deployment strategies to meet demand.

Sigfox said one of the contributing growth factors would be that the global chip shortage has started to ease and is expected to improve substantially during 2023.

“As IoT solutions depend on these chipsets, an improvement in supply will allow manufacturers of IoT products to scale up production rapidly and allow greater flexibility to pivot their solutions in response to customer requirements,” Sigfox said.

Naidoo said the critical needs for the IoT industry are locally manufactured and produced IoT hardware, cheaper total cost of IoT systems, and longer battery lifespans.

“The industry and ecosystem of IoT partners are investing heavily in the design and manufacturing of disposal tags that makes tracking of a wide range of goods and parcels possible,” he stated.

Naidoo also said there was a need for technologies to converge and simplify the customer experience.

Sigfox SA operates its own dedicated low-power wide area network in South Africa.

It runs in the ultra-narrow radio frequency band, allowing for better distance and penetration than mobile networks.

It plans to continue significantly investing in its IoT network infrastructure to improve availability.

“The focus this year will be on densifying coverage within key areas to provide additional network redundancy and improve deep indoor penetration where necessary,” Sigfox stated.

The company also wants to expose the market to “new and disruptive” solutions for monitoring and protecting assets and cargo.

Load-shedding offers a unique opportunity for IoT

One uniquely South African problem that IoT helps to address is load-shedding.

For example, IoT systems can alert users when backup battery and fuel levels run low, and of equipment failures due to power surges.

“Load-shedding is undoubtedly contributing to a requirement for increased visibility of assets and improved control over business processes,” Sigfox said.

“Within our customer base, we are seeing increased interest in monitoring cold storage facilities, as well as the entire cold chain in general – a sector heavily dependent on a reliable power source.”

“Other enquiries and use cases on our network that we are seeing as a direct response to load-shedding include diesel monitoring and usage time on generators, battery theft monitoring and tracking, as well as real-time diagnostic systems for the fast-growing solar rental market.”

Naidoo said Sigfox SA has its own network monitoring system called CabiSense that communicates over the Sigfox network.

“[This] is made possible by the extensive overlap and redundancy inherent in our network architecture,” he said.

“The CabiSense provides real-time diagnostics for backhaul communication, mains power and UPS status, assisting us greatly in dispatching the correct field technicians as quickly as possible, particularly in the context of the increased operational complexities that load-shedding introduces.”

Now read: Google working on AirTag rival