As well as maritime connectivity, another of Telecom26’s core services is IoT connectivity for freight vehicles travelling over-land.
With empty shelves and long lead times for building products and household goods, the intricacies of the global supply chain are now better appreciated by people around the world – with shipping companies, and retailers, around the world now investigating, and embracing, the benefits of IoT connectivity.
In our earlier blog Supply Chains, IoT Connectivity and our Global Roaming Service, we discussed the World Economic Forum’s thoughts on 5 ways the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the supply chain:
“The worldwide supply chain continues to be affected by challenges relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, including delays and disruption.
Many chief executives now identify supply chain turmoil as the greatest threat to their companies' growth and their countries' economies - greater than the pandemic, labour shortages, geopolitical instability, war and domestic conflict.
Organizations need to reimagine and manage their supply chain differently to ensure business continuity and growth for the future”.
IoT Connectivity and Freight Companies
The need for companies with supply chains to invest in digital infrastructure is discussed in two white papers written by Telecom26’s team of IoT Connectivity experts
In these papers our IoT Connectivity experts write about how and why IoT is now essential for global supply chains that span multiple countries on-land, on-sea, in the air, underground.
Since the safe and timely delivery of materials across water and along roads is paramount, freight companies are increasingly seeking to use IoT data to optimise performance, while manufacturers and others in the supply chain wish to collect information about goods while in transit.
Whether freight moves by ship, rail or lorry, data needs to be collected - and transmitted - from onboard sensors and monitors, as well as operational systems and other devices that are used to track goods, packages and containers.
And indeed as goods pass from ship to rail to road, they need to stay connected too.
It’s important to remember that the data they collect has different characteristics:
- A significant proportion is low volume – low packet size – and requires little bandwidth
- A growing proportion, however, will have much great bandwidth requirements, for example for key operational systems and reporting
- Again, not all data has the same time sensitivity. Some requires real-time transfer, while other data can be transmitted periodically, or when conditions change according to alarm triggers
- IoT connectivity needs to be arranged to reflect this, with prioritisation of critical data and secure gating to send less critical data at the right intervals.
However, regardless of the size and urgency of the data, in order to ensure that the right information can be collected, at the right time, IoT connectivity to remote networks and systems is required.
That sounds easy – just use mobile or satellite connections. In practice, this can be a significant challenge. For one thing, satellite is expensive. For another, there are – literally – hundreds of mobile network operators with networks of varying quality.
Telecom26’s Global Roaming Service for IoT Connectivity
Telecom26 is a mobile service provider and a maritime mobile operator and offers always-available voice and data connectivity for vehicles of all shapes and sizes with the ability to connect to any available network.
Whether it’s a ship travelling from China to Europe laden with containers, a smaller vessel on an inland waterway, a truck driving through South America or trains on lengthy rail routes, what these vital movers of goods have in common is that they need to stay connected.
However, not all networks are equally available – some offer better coverage in some locations than others. And, every country has its own range of terrestrial network operators. This means that, as any vehicle moves within and between countries, different networks become available.
Telecom26 enables devices and routers to hop seamlessly between different networks with ease – and benefit from the bundle pricing we offer. This means there’s no need to worry about the hidden costs of global roaming.
Telecom26 SIMs are compatible with 1100 cellular networks from over 650 mobile operators in more than 200 countries which means that wherever a vehicle goes, we’ll be providing IoT connectivity all the way.
Telecom26’s IoT connectivity service for ships
Our maritime connectivity services include:
- A full Cellular At Sea service for vessels of all sizes
- A Nearshore Connectivity Service – This blog “Nearshore Connectivity - perfect for vessels up to 30km off the coast” discusses how most ships and vessels spend the majority (up to 60%) of their time in port or in coastal waters. They are therefore within range of land-based cellular networks which can provide coverage to vessels as far out as 30km. So, instead of relying on costly satellite for data or connectivity, vessels – and the people on-board - can use these cellular networks.
- A Maritime IoT Service including private networks on-board vessels, oil rigs and platforms – and supply chain tracking
To learn more about our Global Roaming Service and Global IoT eSIM cards, please visit our IoT Connectivity for logistics and the supply chain pages.
To learn more about how Telecom26 can help improve efficiencies within your supply chain by using IoT Connectivity, eSIMs and our global mobile network, please contact us.
Catching-Up In-Person
Later in the year Telecom26 will be attending these major international trade fairs:
SMM
6-9 September
Hamburg, Germany
Mets Trade
15- 17 November
Amsterdam
MEDICA 2022
14–17 November 2022
Düsseldorf, Germany
If you, or one of your team, will be at any of these shows and would like to discuss our IoT connectivity and global connectivity services in-person then please book a meeting.
