At Sigfox World IoT Expo last week in Prague-Czech Republic, Sigfox announced that its network now spans 36 countries, as part of its mission to offer a consistent level of connectivity quality and service anywhere in the world.

Here are the highlights of the Sigfox conference:

• Sigfox’s network is now available in 36 countries, including 17 countries with national coverage and the addition of four new operators in Costa Rica, Croatia, Thailand, and Tunisia.
• A new suite of connectivity services which includes the ability to turn any short-range wireless device into a long range IoT device, connect to the Sigfox network in markets where coverage hasn’t been deployed yet, and new interoperability capabilities which allows IoT devices to recognize and automatically adapt to local communications standards without any additional hardware.
• Partnering with GCT Semiconductor, Sigfox has now launched the first hybrid cellular/Sigfox IoT solution– a chip which can support LTE-M/NB-IoT/EC-GSM and Sigfox IoT connectivity.
• New partnerships with electronics manufacturer Alps Electric Europe, Bosch Connected Devices and Solutions, and strategy consultancy Roland Berger

“We’re excited to work with all of our new partners, this move marks yet another key milestone towards Sigfox’s vision of a global IoT network. We are looking forward to collaborating with our new Sigfox operators to help their local ecosystems to seamlessly scale IoT solutions wherever the Sigfox network is present in the world. Together, we’re building a future that will be better to live in,”  said Rodolphe Baronnet-Frugès, Executive Vice President of Operators at Sigfox.

Sigfox operators are not only contributing to accelerate IoT development in their local markets, they are also committing to deploy and operate the network infrastructure and offer national coverage in their country. Up to now, almost 100 million euros have been invested by Sigfox operators to offer a unique access to the Sigfox IoT services, with the exact same quality of service.

This unique global offer is enriched with Sigfox new service Monarch, now allowing IoT devices to recognize and automatically adapt to every local communications standard in the world without roaming. By enabling ‘globe trotter’ assets that can seamlessly adapt as they move across borders, Monarch could be a game-changer for logistics, freight, and consumer goods industries.

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In Ireland, Sigfox Operator VT signed a €1-mill IoT subscription with Dunraven Systems, a market leader in the design and development of ultrasonic fuel tank monitors.

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In addition to its core IoT connectivity service, Sigfox offers a range of services to make even more simple to use Sigfox’s technology, to deploy and to adopt mass IoT solutions. These services allow to connect billions of wireless devices that are not yet connected to the internet.

Above illustration courtesy of Sigfox

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This potential game-changing development has been made possible by the cognitive capabilities of the Sigfox network and its Software Defined Radio technology, where all the network and computing complexity is managed in the Cloud rather than on the device. This enables Sigfox to constantly improve its network features and make them available by simple software upgrade.

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A key question for Sigfox is whether they’ll also support the new LPWAN standards and specs (LTE category M1, NB-IoT, LoRA WAN, etc).  We’ve asked the company and are eagerly awaiting their reply.  Stay tuned.