How we built it: IoT bikes that fight climate change | IoT Insider Podcast Episode 28

Bernie McPhillips
Hey everybody. Thanks for tuning into the IoT Insider. I’m Bernie McPhillips, Sales Director of Pangea. And today I’m delighted to be joined by Chris Romeika, our Operations Director and one of our co-founders. Hey, Chris, thanks for joining us.

Chris Romeika
Hi, Bernie. Hi, everybody. Thanks for having me on. Happy to be here.

Bernie McPhillips
Superb. Today we’re going to be looking at how we helped Birmingham City Council reduce their carbon footprint and some IoT bike projects. But before we kind of get into that, you know, as one of our co-founders, Chris, you remember back in the day, you know, Pangea, the Greek term for ‘All Earth’ the world’s better connected, that supercontinent, referred to in a global airlines TV advert now by a very, very famous actor, which is awesome to hear. I suppose back in the day, we anticipated that Pangea would be a one stop shop for all IoT requirements. I think you, and Dan, our co-founders quickly and very cleverly realised, that was a very tall order. And we became what we are today, which is a specialist in intelligent mobile data, intelligent connectivity. But we’re still IoT at the heart, right? It’s still kind of what gets our blood flowing, our heart pumping and makes us get out of bed every morning.

Chris Romeika
Exactly, yeah. And I think, on this podcast, we’re really going to go back to our roots in that respect, and, you know, get down into those really, really interesting solutions. I think solutions can be interesting for different reasons. Sometimes they can be interesting, because you can just put together a package that no one else can offer, you know, combination of data, voice and text in X number of countries. But this time, this solution is about, you know, making something unique for the market and solving a unique challenge. So this one’s a very exciting one to talk about.

Bernie McPhillips
Yeah, I agree. Chris I agree. So IoT, the Internet of Things, for those people that may be new listeners, and maybe not that familiar with one of many acronyms in our industry, is the art of connecting objects, being able to retrieve information from them, refine that information to make it useful to whoever needs it, and then have actionable and positive outcomes as a result. So you can be connecting things from sensors, measuring temperature, vehicles to optimised routes, or in this case, you know, connected bikes which is really awesome. And as you say, Chris, really kind of stepped back to our roots and what Pangea was all about. Now, we are a provider of intelligent mobile data, it can often be connectivity, a big push for us at the moment is the PSTN switch off, which many of our listeners or partners will be privy to, we’re connecting things all over the world, whether it’s bikes and football stadiums and many other things. But in this instance, yeah, you know, a true IoT solution. So let’s get into it and have a little think about, you know, what it was and why we were brought into it. So there was a challenge at that point, in time, when there was a large council, Birmingham City, they needed to reduce their carbon footprint, and also had a challenge around traffic congestion. It was at an all time high in this particular city. So it meant that emissions were rising to potentially dangerous levels. So they set out to promote a healthier, greener lifestyle, for the people that live there, travel through it, were educated there, worked there, et cetera. And the project that they came up with was providing 1000s of free bicycles, and also training for people who couldn’t ride bikes and how to ride bikes safely, and predominantly aimed at low income families. So a lot of different types of benefits there, Chris, I would think?

Chris Romeika
Yeah, very much so, you know, something which satisfied multiple requests at the same time. And I think that’s the type of thing that the council needed that time a project which gave some big data aspects, some big analytical data aspects to it, but also had some down to earth things like benefits to pollution and congestion. And all that type of thing as well.

Bernie McPhillips
Yeah, absolutely Chris, like multiple benefits. And that’s often the case, when we’re looking at Internet of Things and these solutions. It’s not just driving one outcome so what the council was focusing on was air quality, traffic flow, and also health benefits through getting people cycling as opposed to using public transport or cars to enter the city centre. So lots of different types of benefits, economical, environmental, and also on people’s health in that local area. What they needed was an intelligent IoT solution that was going to give them the data that they needed that would help them to make really informed scientific decisions about the future of their own cities infrastructure, which we believe today still has an impact in terms of where they plant trees, pedestrianisation of certain streets, congestion charging, all of these things and optimising bus routes, trying to drive down traffic in the city centre, reduce emissions improve air quality, and improving people’s health at the same time. So lots of really cool things. So, you know, Chris, you were around when this project was was delivered, so one of the custodians of Pangea since day one, what were your thoughts around why were we selected to be part of this project?

Chris Romeika
Yeah, so I think it was part of what we’ve always said we do, which is, we’ve always said we participate in and are part of an IoT ecosystem, where we’re not just doing one part of it, for example, the SIM cards and leaving the partner, you know, to sort of go off on their own and sort out their own solution, you know, we’re happy to be part of the ecosystem to bring everything together as one solution. So in this case, we came across the requirements and the actual delivery of the solution was very interesting. So obviously, you know, we’ve already talked about the bicycles, and the scheme for the partner to pass around the bicycles to the citizens of Birmingham. The way the solution was deployed was, our partner made a very tiny circuit board, which probably would have been the width of your thumb, or a thumb and a half perhaps. So a very narrow circuit board, which fit in the handlebar stem. So where the handlebar sort of plugs into the frame of the bike, you know, you’ve got kind of a hole there. And you can probably fit a tiny sort of long, narrow circuit board in there. So going down a miniaturisation sort of process. On that circuit board, there was all these smart things. So there was things like temperature sensors, pollution sensors, vibration sensors, you know, various other environmental sensors, and a location sensor, obviously, to track where the bike was. Because it’s so small, we had to provide one of our smallest SIM cards, which was like a nano size SIM card, basically the size of your little pinky finger nail, so that all fit quite comfortably in the handlebar stem of the bike. So we did that deployment, and the partner themselves handled the installation of the circuit boards into the bike, and also had sort of the front end, which was monitoring the positions of all the bicycles, as they moved around Birmingham, was also collecting the data. So all that big data stuff about, you know, location, where were the bikes? What’s the most popular routes? On those popular routes what’s the vibration rate? Are the the bikes vibrating? Or are they sort of jumping from pothole to pothole, or is it really smooth implying it’s a smooth road? Where’s the traffic congestion and what’s the quality of the road and at the same time, having a look at the pollution sensors as well to see what’s the pollution level, so all this data. Obviously, there’s huge amounts of data points. So if you just look at it on a giant spreadsheet, or something, it generally would not mean too much, so then they have to do the analytical part of it to sort of pull all that together, and present it on a front end. So you know, that’s how they were able to get back to the council with all these analytical reports about, you know, here’s recommendations for better routes, or these routes are congested, or plant more trees in this particular area. And at the same time, obviously, the citizens of Birmingham are getting fitter. So there’s a health aspect to that too, as well.

Bernie McPhillips
Chris, what a job for our Operations Director and someone exceptionally technically minded, you did a brilliant job of putting that into more sales speak, I would say, and I can’t let it pass as someone who’s so precise and has to describe things at granular level within our business on a daily basis, I can’t let it pass that you described something as a thumb and a half. So if that’s now a form of scientific measure, then I’ll take that all day long, my friend, that was awesome. But just to build on that a little bit. I don’t really know if I can top that very much at all. But we were selected to provide the connectivity for this particular awesome solution, I’m sure everyone agree’s the benefits of it are just layered upon layer upon layer, as Chris so eloquently described, we were selected to provide the connectivity for the solution, because it required more than just mobile broadband. There’s so many instances and so many intelligent solutions out there where mobile broadband simply doesn’t cut it. And there’s quite a few reasons why. First of all, not all of these applications and sensors were firing at the same time. There was stages to the project where there was a focus on pollution, or as you say, Chris road quality or congestion, or air quality, etc. So the SIMs were using different amounts of data during those periods. So we were able to provide flexible tariffs that would go up and down on a monthly basis depending on usage to allow the project to benefit and optimise their costs, rather than having a rigid tariff structure like you’d have if you took a mobile broadband SIM from a typical telecoms provider. I think secondly, and probably the most important is the fact that, as you say, Chris, the beauty of this project, the value in it is in the data that is collected. And you can then collect that data if the object is connected to retrieve that information from it. And no network has perfect coverage. So we were able to provide unsteered Multi-network SIMs in these devices that will connect to the strongest signal wherever those bikes were around the city. So the four major networks in the UK, as we know, they would have fluctuating levels of coverage around the city, but the bikes would always be connected or have the best chance of being connected wherever they are. So your application is always up and running, it’s always online, you’re always getting access to that critical data that you want. And that then applies to every other project that we’ve done ever since really, I suppose. So other things that this led to, I think the credibility of having run this huge local authority project probably led to us being selected to provide connectivity to 102,000 school kids during the lockdown. Again, it’s fully managed. It’s more than mobile broadband. It’s Multi-network, the same technology that we’re describing here with the bikes, it’s led to us delivering the PSTN switch off for one of the biggest cities in Europe, we connected all of their street furniture with cellular, again Multi-network connectivity. It’s the same technologies that we’re talking about here with the bikes. But this was a very early proof point for Pangea, that we could manage this type of project and deliver based on the requirements, Multi-network was the way to go in terms of resilience, and making sure that the application was online. So now, whether we’re connecting some of the biggest high street retailers in the country, or Premier League football clubs, or global airlines, where we’re providing the same technology, and it was proved very early on. In terms of the security as well, Chris, we’ve got private APNs in place with all of the networks, was that a critical part of the deployment back in the day, the security of the data?

Chris Romeika
Yeah, it was a requirement. You know, it was one of those solutions, where we didn’t need the SIM card to talk to just anywhere on the internet. Obviously, we provide that in many, many cases, you know, office backup, and all that type of thing. But in this case the SIM just needed to talk to a certain endpoint to exchange the data back and forth. So, were required, we just locked down the connectivity, just for security sake to make sure that it was safe. Yep.

Bernie McPhillips
That’s brilliant. Absolutely awesome. And I know a key thing of the way we deliver our connectivity as well, Chris, and it being a fully managed service, these 4000 bikes weren’t all being connected in one day, right? You know, it’s a bit of a phased project. But we were able to deliver all of our connectivity in a particular state, which meant it was ready to be used, it was active, but the client wasn’t being billed until the SIMs were put in the device and actually started using data. So it just gave the partner the whole project complete control of the rollout, didn’t it?

Chris Romeika
That’s right, yeah, using a feature that we call ‘Test Ready’. It just allows the partner to, you know, and it’s a very production line thing, but it just allowed the partner to put the SIM in our little thumb and a half size circuit board, turn it on, make sure it could connect to the server, turn it off, again, box it up again. And it might have been three months, till it was actually put into a bike and you know, ridden off by someone. But in those three months, there wouldn’t have been any billing for the customer or anything like that. It was just sort of like a free, small amount of data just to test something and be assured that it’s going to be working when you turn it on again in three months, and there’ll be no hidden surprises. So that’s a very popular IoT, M2M style feature that we call ‘Test Ready’. And it’s available on a lot of our portfolio of SIMs.

Bernie McPhillips
Yeah, it certainly is, and can be applied to a lot of different use cases. I know it was a big part of this project as well. This is one of our favourite case studies. It’s a project we delivered quite some time ago but we know that it’s still delivering real value, even today. There’s lots more opportunities like this with our partners, where it’s not just connectivity, it’s not just a SIM in a router, or a gateway, or going in some form of device. As you mentioned, Chris, that brilliant word ‘ecosystem’. We’ve got lots of solution providers within our ecosystem. So if our other partners ever have come across these requirements, or customers asking if there’s a way to measure a particular thing, invariably, there is an IoT solution to measure almost anything. And we can do this globally. We’ve got access to 960 networks in 185 countries. So we’re not just restricted to the UK or even Europe. We can deliver connectivity anywhere that’s needed around the world. So I think it’s safe to say Chris, we can definitely help our partners to win some of their deals right?

Chris Romeika
Yeah, that’s right. And, you know, myself and the team are always keen to get into the requirements of what the partner needs, especially with these type of projects and solutions, you know, you can’t sort of have a template, which covers everything. Everything’s unique, everyone’s got unique requirements. And then these days just with the permutations of what you can have access to, ranging from APNs, to single or Multi-network to different countries, to 4G and 5G, and all the opposite directions to low power to NB IoT, and you know, all that type of thing. It really is something where we’re happy to get down and do some in depth consultation to make sure the partner gets exactly what they want.

Bernie McPhillips
Yeah, absolutely. Spot on, Chris. The purpose of talking over these case studies, and we’ll continue to do this in future podcasts is not so that everybody goes out and finds opportunities to connect bikes, okay, there’s going to be a limited number of opportunities limited to this specifically. But it’s about how our technology can be used to connect literally anything. So the kind of takeaways from this is not about connecting 4000 bikes and measuring air quality, etc. Because we’ve already spoken about how that technology was applied to many of the projects that fell from this as well. So the things to take away are Pangea can connect anything, we’re proud to be able to offer any amount of data on any network on any type of SIM such as a nano, multiple networks on a single SIM if needed, layering applications if needed, like SIM lock into a device, content filtering, and many more. So when mobile broadband just doesn’t cut it. Intelligent mobile data is absolutely the way to go. Unsteered Multi-network connecting your devices wherever they are. It’s now a real credible alternative to fixed line, especially now with the rollout of 5G, greater network performance, greater range of devices being made available. Where installations are tough, we can instantly deploy so there’s just so many use cases of intelligent mobile data. So don’t just think of this as but I need to go out and find some bikes to connect. We’re using the case study as a backdrop to bring the technology to life, where you can apply it in almost any business verticals that you operate in. So if you’re already a partner, reach out to your account manager. And if you’re not, please get in touch and become one. Because there will be opportunities for intelligent mobile data and or IoT, right under your nose within your existing customer base. And we can help you to identify, qualify and win those deals. And they’re significant, if you take a look at our website, look at our case studies, many multimillion pound projects. So we’ve long ago bust that myth that there’s no money in IoT, that you need to do massive volume to make any margin, that’s long gone, we can really help to drive brilliant outcomes for your customers lock into long term contracts, lots of value. The longest contracts, we’ve got in our business are for 15 years, and we’ve got several of them. But we can also be experts in short term deployments for temporary sites, construction, that type of thing as well. So please do get in touch. I always remember a story, Chris of, I think it was JFK his first visit to NASA, I often think about what we do here at Pangea. So he went to NASA, and he introduced himself to a young man who happen to be, this young man happily mopping the floor at that time. And he was asked, you know, what do you do here? And he said, I’m helping to put man on the moon. So he kind of saw the bigger picture, supposing that we at Pangea, if someone was to ask us, what do we do, at a granular level we connect things, we provide the SIM cards for intelligent mobile data. But in this instance, if you think of that chapter, I’m helping to put man on the moon, in that project, we promoted a healthier lifestyle, we reduced emissions, we created a safer, less congested city. Now, that’s a big thing, you know, to be a part of, so I think we sometimes need to not just as a Pangea, but probably all remind ourselves when we sometimes play a small part in a big project, the overall outcome of that project can be pretty, pretty powerful. So maybe we’re not putting man on the moon right now. But maybe one day we will. So maybe that’s our our Pangea, JFK and NASA story right there. So there you go. Probably, I probably just probably just overcome your thumb and a half, whether people might remember that more than that, we’ll see.

Chris Romeika
Well, if this podcast is still going, you know, 10 years from now, we might be talking about SIM cards in orbit or something like that, who knows?

Bernie McPhillips
Yeah we might well do. But you know, we always appreciate everybody listening to these podcasts. And always love being on a podcast with you, Chris. It’s always insightful, and always, lots of great information. So just want to thank everybody for listening. And if everyone could head over to our website for more IoT podcasts and blog content, real life examples of how IoT looks in action, check out our case studies, sign up for our mailing list, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. And that’s probably enough plugs for now. But if you just want a helping hand in getting started with your IoT project, just give us a call. Get in touch for some free pointers, I’ve been doing this for over eight years now, we’re dedicated to it. Don’t sell any other form of telecoms or all IoT, all intelligent mobile data. And we can’t wait to hear from you. Isn’t that right, Chris?

Chris Romeika
We can’t wait to hear Bernie. We can’t wait.

Bernie McPhillips
Awesome. Thank you very much for your time, Chris. And thanks, everybody for listening. And speak to you again soon.