France and Taiwan to Promote Cooperation to Establish a Global IoT Testbed

SIGFOX, a telecommunications service provider specializing in the Internet of Things (IoT), and UnaBiz, an IoT network operator in Asia, announced together with French and Taiwanese officials that they will establish a global IoT testbed in Taiwan.

This testbed, built around Sigfox's IoT network, is set to connect Taiwan's vast electronics manufacturing industry with the global IoT to demonstrate various applications and use cases.

This plan is Taiwan's CK Lee (CK It was announced at a business launch event held in Taipei on August 1, attended by Minister of Economic Affairs Lee, Benoit Guidée, Representative of the French Office in Taipei, Ludovic Le Moan, CEO of Sigfox, Henri Bong, CEO of Unabiz, and others.

In addition, industry and government experts attended the event, including Advantech President Chaney Ho, Taipei City Chief Information Officer (CIO) Wei-Bin Lee, and Ming-Whei Feng, Director of the Smart Network System Institute at the Institute for Information Industry (Taiwan).

Guide, the representative of the French delegation, stated that this nationwide network and testbed in Taiwan will not only support Taiwan’s goal of becoming “Asia’s Silicon Valley” where the latest disruptive technologies thrive, but will also enable Sigfox to expand its business globally by leveraging Taiwan’s design and manufacturing expertise. Taiwan's large-scale high-tech manufacturing industry has extensive experience in developing high-quality products at competitive prices.

CEO Guide continued, “Sigfox is not only one of the premier ambassadors of the ‘La French Tech’ spirit but also a company that contributes significantly to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in France through the ‘IoT Valley,’ the European IoT Innovation Hub. I am confident that the connection between the ‘IoT Valley’ and Taiwan’s design and manufacturing capabilities will provide a great opportunity for France and Taiwan to jointly pioneer the future of the global IoT industry.” "In this way, France enables Taiwan to utilize Sigfox as a gateway to the global market, thereby simplifying the integration and acceleration of product launch strategies," he added.

UnaBiz, which announced just three weeks ago that it would establish a network in Singapore through a strategic partnership with ENGIE and Sigfox, plans to take the lead in installing a network in Taiwan as well, which is expected to be built across Taiwan in early 2018.

Henri Bong, CEO of Unabiz, said, “Taiwan is a key country in the company’s regional business expansion strategy because it has the world’s largest ecosystem of devices and solutions that promotes the adoption and use of IoT.”

With this, Taiwan becomes the 23rd country in the world to build Sigfox’s two-way IoT network, which connects numerous devices constituting the IoT industry at low cost and high efficiency, the second in Asia, and the fourth in the Asia-Pacific region.

Infrastructure is scheduled to be built by mid-2017 in the six major cities or districts home to 23.5 million people, half of Taiwan's population. Because Sigfox's infrastructure is much lighter than traditional wireless network infrastructure, rapid deployment is possible in all countries.

Le Moan, CEO of Sigfox, stated, “Sigfox will strengthen its ecosystem by collaborating with the world’s most competitive and efficient Taiwanese electronics companies to rapidly identify and implement IoT designs and use cases. Furthermore, by demonstrating that Sigfox’s uninterrupted IoT network improves industrial manufacturing efficiency more than ever before, we will prove its benefits to companies worldwide.”

Furthermore, Bong UnaBiz CEO stated, “We will immediately establish strong partnerships with key players in the local ecosystem and across the entire IoT value chain, ranging from semiconductor companies and design firms to device manufacturers.” He added, “Through this dynamic process, we will spark creative responses from entrepreneurs and revitalize IoT,” noting, “As part of this process, UnaBiz plans to leverage Taiwan’s industrial ecosystem to complement Sigfox’s global partner ecosystem, providing the world’s largest catalog of IoT devices.”