GSMA Mobile World Congress, BARCELONA, Spain, February 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ —

Actility‘s ThingPark™ platform will be integrated in Cisco IoT solutions 

Actility, the industry leader in Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) networks announced that it is collaborating with Cisco to help customers embrace digital transformation and accelerate the development of new business models based on the Internet of Things (IoT). Actility will today join the Cisco Partner Ecosystem as a Cisco Solutions+ Partner for LPWA solutions for IoT. The collaboration will allow global service providers and other vertical industries to create added value far beyond simple connectivity, in both business markets such as smart cities, connected factories and industrial IoT, and high volume business to consumer applications.  

The combined offering of Cisco IoT solutions and Actility‘s ThingPark Wireless™ Platform also addresses the requirements of private managed LoRa (Low Power, Long Range) wide area networks and can be deployed in a customer‘s premises or offered as a Software as a Service model (SaaS). The announcement also brings Cisco networking expertise and the latest LoRa gateway technology to the rapidly growing Actility ThingPark ecosystem, which simplifies the deployment of end–to–end IoT solutions for customers.

Actility’s ThingPark provides long-range network connectivity for low-power sensors used in multiple applications such as smart cities, facility management and asset tracking. The Cisco IoT gateways and Cisco Field Network Director tools provide the vital link between the LoRa radio connections to sensors and devices, and the global Internet or private customer network. Actility’s ThingPark OSS helps ensure that it is straightforward for customers to configure and deploy IoT networks and solutions by validating all the components of an end-to-end solution, from sensors and devices through network connectivity and applications. Now ThingPark customers have access to Cisco IoT solutions with world-leading networking technology that is ready to use and deploy in their Actility-powered service solutions.

“We’re very proud to be able to collaborate with a storied industry leader like Cisco to bring new value to the ThingPark ecosystem,” comments Actility CTO and CEO Olivier Hersent. “With the Cisco IoT gateway we are ready for multi-sector deployments and location services where sensors can be localized without a GPS! Now operators have no need to wait for LTE-based IoT solutions: they can address the massive opportunities in the rapidly growing IoT market today.”

This partnership will enable LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) networks to be expanded rapidly on a global scale, fueling the explosive growth of the next generation of IoT services. Cisco and Actility’s relationships with major tier one telecom operators will accelerate the go to market and widespread deployment of the joint solution.

Vikas Butaney, general manager, IoT Connectivity Business Unit at Cisco, said: “I welcome Actility to the Cisco partner community for our IoT solutions to help accelerate digital transformation across industries. Our collaboration with Actility will enable us to offer a complete LoRA LPWA-based solution to our customers and partners, and opens up IoT to an untapped market of billions of battery-powered devices. LoRa’s ability to communicate elegantly without draining excessive power makes it suitable for deploying connected devices in the field that can provide actionable business insights over an extended lifetime.”

Actility and Cisco are both members of the LoRa Alliance, a non-profit organization which aims to drive the global success of the LoRa protocol (LoRaWAN) by sharing knowledge and experience to help ensure interoperability between operators in one open global standard. Cisco’s collaboration with Actility and induction into the ThingPark ecosystem clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of the LoRa Alliance in nurturing business relationships that will drive the rapid growth of the Internet of things globally.