Telefonica has received the TelecomLead.com Innovation Leaders 2019 award for innovations in its IoT business.
Telefonica is one of the few mobile operators in the world to have a dedicated Chief IoT Officer. Vicente Munoz, as the chief IoT officer of Telefonica, is instrumental in registering 44.8 percent growth in Telefonica’s IoT revenue to €131 million during the June quarter of 2019.
ALSO READ: List of winners at TelecomLead.com Innovation Leaders 2019 award
Telefonica is enhancing its IoT business at a time when several telecom operators are going slow with their IoT ambitions. IoT connections of Telefonica rose by 1.8 million in the first half of 2019. Telefonica’s IoT business already connects more than a million vehicles worldwide.
Recently, Telefonica and SEAT have presented two cases for using IoT (Internet of Things) technology to increase road safety by helping to reduce accidents on roads in Spain. The aim of the IoT project is to show how an Internet of Things solution works in the detection and warning of hazards to drivers travelling on a road.
Telefonica’s IoT project could identify the presence of a cyclist riding on the road and the existence of a stationary car on the road due to a breakdown or some other type of incident. Drone with a camera, as part of the Internet of Things system, captures images of latest development on the road and sends them in real time to a server that will be connected to the DGT 3.0 platform via Telefonica’s mobile network. The system processes the image, detects if there is a bicycle or a stationary vehicle on the road and sends an alert to the connected SEAT car.
Telematic Control Unit (TCU), using C-V2X (Cellular Vehicle to Everything) technology, connects the vehicle to the network. A software enables communication between the vehicle’s internal network and its surroundings.
Telefonica has provided the project with end-to-end connectivity and enabled third parties to deploy applications on the edge of the network, enabling critical communications with immediate response such as traffic management.
Telefonica and SEAT presented several use cases for connected cars and assisted driving via 5G in a real environment at this year’s Mobile World Congress.
Earlier, Telefonica, in partnership with the Carlos III University of Madrid, Divisek and Dronitec, has conducted an innovation pilot with drones, based on Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for the early detection of forest fires and contributing to its prevention in Spain.
Telefonica engineers have set up thermal sensors — capable of detecting any possible outbreak of fire in a perimeter of up to 15 km — at telecommunications towers. These towers have a hangar with a drone, also equipped with sensors and both thermal and optical cameras.
Once the thermal sensors detect a fire they send an alert to the drone with the exact location where a fire may have started. The drone then flies autonomously to that point, even in conditions of low visibility, collects optical and thermal images and sends in real time all the information it collects to the emergency services thanks to the mobile connectivity provided by Telefonica towers.
Telefonica has an IoT agreement with Schindler assisting the elevators and escalators supplier for offering predictive maintenance by analyzing data from connected elevators and escalators that improves equipment reliability and uptime and delivers insights to better operate buildings.
