Actility, the provider of IoT connectivity solutions and LPWA technology, and Helium have launched a roaming integration partnership, unlocking affordable and ubiquitous coverage for millions of IoT devices.

This roaming integration is made possible by the Helium blockchain, which allows LoRaWAN compatible devices already supported by Actility to utilise coverage provided by the Helium Network and pay a fraction of the cost for data transfer. The interoperability is done through Actility’s ThingPark Exchange, the de facto standard LoRaWAN IoT peering hub.

The Helium Network is the wireless network, decentralising connectivity and expanding access to the internet worldwide. In the fewer than two years since the Network’s launch, it has achieved global adoption with more than 215,000 Hotspots deployed in over 19,000 cities. Through this integration with ThingPark Exchange, Actility will be able to immediately bring the Helium Network coverage to 25 already connected networks worldwide, spanning large nationwide public LoRaWAN networks, multinational corporate private networks, and a set of satellite networks, giving them access to scalable, secure, and manageable peering. 

As a result of this partnership, all IoT devices served by the networks that are connected to ThingPark Exchange can now roam between Helium-compatible Hotspots and the networks from all the other providers joining the peering platform, such as Actility-powered public LoRaWAN networks managed by Orange in France, KPN in the Netherlands, Proximus in Belgium, Swisscom in Switzerland, and many more. The number of roaming networks is constantly increasing as new networks join both from more than 50 large-scale users of Actility’s ThingPark Wireless™ IoT platform and also others using standards-compliant 3rd party network servers.

As a founding member of the LoRa alliance, this integration signals Actility’s commitment to expand the LPWAN integration to all types of LoRaWAN networks, and to advance the Helium Network ecosystem by offering roaming to both public and private LoRaWAN networks that support large-scale enterprise customers worldwide.

Actility supports a variety of use cases, including IoT applications for smart industries and cities, energy and utilities, logistics and supply chain, facility management, precision agriculture and proximity detection and contact tracing for COVID-19, by various partners including Cisco, Volvo, Veolia, Schneider Electric, Accenture, Quuppa, Olympus, and now Helium. 

Notably, Bouygues Construction Group tracks over 20,000 pieces of equipment in real-time using Helium-compatible Abeeway sensors from Actility, which Volvo Group also uses to optimise their yard management in its France and U.S. truck plants. In Saudi Arabia, The Red Sea Development Company is deploying over 39,000 Helium-compatible LoRaWAN trackers for construction workers and vehicles to further ensure employee safety using location-based insights. As businesses seek to meet goals and cut costs, the use cases enabled by Helium and Actility are inexhaustible. Even consumers benefit from roaming when tracking their goods and pets. Check out the details of how Abeeway trackers using Helium Network operate in this dedicated webinar.

“The growth of the Helium Network has been explosive. By creating a roaming integration with the Helium Network, we are now able to offer any LoRaWAN network, public or private, access to this coverage, enabling them to deploy applications in more markets faster with low cost and less hassle, while also bringing more users to Hotspot owners to maximise their rewards”, says Alper Yegin, Actility’s VP of advanced technology development who also serves as the vice-chair of the board of directors and chair of technical committee for the LoRa Alliance.

“The Helium Network’s mission and the driving force behind our decision to partner with Actility is to democratise the internet through ubiquitous connectivity, we’re proud to team up with Actility and expand connectivity to millions of IoT devices that can now roam on the LoRaWAN network in the world.” says Helium co-founder and CEO Amir Haleem.

For information about roaming on the Helium Network, visit here.

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