Samsung has today announced plans to team up with South Korea's largest carrier SK Telecom to build a network dedicated to connecting all Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the region. The manufacturer claims that the new LoRaWAN-based network will be specifically tailored to commercial use, which will enable it to collect data from a sensor on one side of a city and make an adjustment on another. For example, streetlights are capable of recording weather and traffic information using IoT sensors. This information can then be used to cut costs nationwide by automatically adjusting the brightness of the bulbs.
If you're unfamiliar with LoRaWAN, it's a low power, long range, minimal bandwidth network, which makes it the perfect networking platform for bouncing communication between sensors in a smart city. Samsung will roll out the technology in Daegu next month using the 900MHz frequency, also known as the Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) band, but will make it available nationally before the end of the year where it will operate on a different frequency that's capable of processing larger amounts of data at a significantly faster rate. However, the exact transfer speeds remain unknown at this precise moment in time.
Here's what Samsung had to say about the project:
Daegu will serve as a test bed for the IoT network, and focus on setting up and adopting infrastructure for renewable energy solutions, cloud platforms and big data analytics of healthcare and medical services, as well as electric vehicle infrastructure for autonomous cars. For example, streetlights in the city will collect weather and traffic information using IoT sensors, enabling cost savings by automatically adjusting the lighting level and also sending air pollution status information.
