Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
The City of Gold Coast has selected the National Narrowband Network (NNNCo) to build and operate the council's LoRaWAN network.
The network has been made available for commercial use and the deployment of wide-ranging IoT applications, including home automation, logistics and wearable technologies. It is said to have capacity to support more than 600,000 sensors and real-time management tools.
NNNCo head of sales Kat Hunter said the Gold Coast network removed complexity for resellers, enabling them to focus on providing solutions.
"The expansion of the NNNCo network across the Gold Coast lets resellers focus on providing solutions and applications to their customers without getting into a network conversation.
"That has positive benefits for resellers by shortening the sales cycle, and for end customers by focusing their investment on solutions that will positively impact their business," Hunter said.
NNNCo said it has been successfully running text cases on LoRaWAN for two years now and it is ready to start deployments which may see water meters as the first implementations.
"New approaches are also being developed for a range of services, including waste management and parking," Hunter said.
"This will enable us to deliver services more efficiently, whilst at the same time making more information available to residents and visitors to enhance their customer experience, and help them make decisions."
The investment in LoRaWAN network is to enable the most diverse range of uses of a network in Australia.
"This is a large-scale LoRaWAN network with coverage across the city that will provide significant opportunities for residents, visitors and businesses on the Gold Coast," said Ian Hatton, City of Gold Coast chief innovation and economy officer.
"By using the LoRaWAN technology, which is becoming one of the world’s most commonly used networks, we can offer the greatest coverage to support large-scale deployment securely, reliably and cost effectively.”
In August 2018, the council announced a $10 million investment to add a 37km loop in the existing optic fibre broadband network.
In the previous 18 months, the council had installed a 65km-optic fibre backbone, running along the light rail corridor from Helensvale to Broadbeach, costing $4.5 million.
The optic fibre backbone was installed ahead of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games and delivered thousands of hours of television and digital broadcast coverage of the Games to more than 70 countries.
