How we built it: Powering smart meter solutions in 85 countries | IoT Insider Podcast Episode 31

Dan Cunliffe
Hi, everyone, and thanks so much for tuning into the IoT Insider. My name is Dan Cunliffe, and I’m Managing Director at Pangea. And today I’m joined by the wonderful Bernie McPhillips, our Sales Director. Hey, Bernie, how you doing?

Bernie McPhillips
Hey, Dan, very well, thank you. Delighted to be back on the IoT Insider Podcast with you. Welcome back. In fact, I think we’ve had a few guest slots over the last couple of months. And it’s always wonderful to have you have you back. I’m sure our listeners are delighted as well.

Dan Cunliffe
Thank you very much. Yeah, it was a brief but wonderful sabbatical from the IoT podcast. But I am back to talk about how we helped a partner use some intelligent mobile connectivity, particularly in a scenario where we look at some factors that maybe some of our partners, particularly our solution provider partners might come across. One being extreme international requirements, troubles along network capability, 2G/3G scenarios, as well as kind of, you know, how do you actually deal with this when you’ve got an extreme rollout in the in the metering market? So Bernie and I are going to talk about that today. And Bernie, maybe perhaps you can just give us a headline on the deal, like what it looks like, and sort of how we’ve constructed it?

Bernie McPhillips
Absolutely it would be my pleasure. I suppose the first aspect is why intelligent mobile data? Why does mobile broadband, not cut it in this particular scenario? And there’s lots of reasons why and I’ll go into some of them. First of all, mobile broadband, it’s rather very unintelligent, by its very nature, very little control, very little real time visibility, if any at all. So when you’re deploying even in a single country, there will be many challenges that you’ll face, one you’ve mentioned already is coverage. Nowhere in the world does any single network operator have perfect coverage. If you deploy solutions on a single network, you’re going to have a good portion of those that may not connect or work as well as you would like. So one of the main benefits, or key benefits of intelligent mobile data is the ability to have multiple networks on a single SIM. So whether you’re deployed in the UK or beyond, they’ll have much more resilience, better coverage. Allow your devices to connect based on signal strength, and make deployments a doddle. So you’ll be rolling out to multiple sites, you’ll have to consider what sort of SIM you’re going to put in each device dependent, where you’re deploying it. A single SIM, across that geography, allow the device to connect based on signal strength through a range of networks, and ensure all of your assets, all of your devices are connected at any one time. When you’re going international, that kind of heightens that particular challenge. Because you’re obviously rolling out across many geographies, many networks, none of which will have perfect coverage. So you’re able to add resilience and make sure more of your devices connect. The next part of intelligent mobile data is the fact that it is real time, there’s lots of controls, we’re able to deploy this particular deployment in 85 countries around the world, what we’re able to do is limit the connectivity to those 85 countries. So should a device for any particular reason end up in a country which shouldn’t connect, which could be very expensive, it simply won’t be allowed to connect. We won’t permit that. And we’ll notify the administrators of the particular deployment that that’s been attempted and they can look into why. So lots more control, lots more visibility. And then the next thing is the SIM itself. So think previously, this particular client was deploying lots of different SIMs across lots of different geographies, juggling lots of contracts with different operators, we were able to offer a ubiquitous solution, a single SIM that could be deployed across all of those 85 countries. Would connect to multiple networks in those 85 countries with all of the controls and real time management. So alert’s if a SIM does something unexpected, a device goes rogue, starts pinging the network more often you expect, that could really spiral out of control and incur very high unexpected charges in a very short space of time. And we can add all the control to say look you know, that device only should connect once a day, if it tries to connect for the second time in a 24 hour period, we won’t allow it to connect and alert the administrators. If it uses more than the amount of data you would expect it to in any one session, or in a month, we would not allow that to happen, and alert the administrator. So all of these controls, ubiquitous SIM card, to when they’re manufacturing the devices, the Pangea SIM goes in, it doesn’t matter what country the device is going to. And it’ll connect on multiple networks. So there’s a lot in there. But I think we’ve lifted this from other similar case studies when we’re deploying through, whether it’s football stadiums, or global airlines, high street retailers, a lot of these things apply to all of these scenarios, Multi-network, lots of control, nothing happens unexpectedly. Hopefully that starts to bring the use case to life a little bit Dan?

Dan Cunliffe
No, thank you so much. I think you’re you’re obviously spot on in terms of like, what are some of the challenges around I think if you if you also probably bring another bit into there. Quite often it’s about making it simple logistically as well. And I think you’re absolutely right to get that all on one type of SIM and sort of create those controls, was one of the key reasons for them going with us. You know, they have got, and this might be quite interesting for some of our partners, they have a fairly interesting distribution channel, they don’t have the same solution in every country, they have sort of these installers, if you want, who go and install these metres, to measure the solar panels information, as well as how much energy they’re producing, to kind of accurately determine if they give it back into the grid. That’s kind of the business, right? So it’s important to be connected everywhere, but also very important to have one type of installation every time. Because when you’ve got a whole bunch of sort of installers, who, you know, may speak different languages, be in different countries have different styles. Having one type of solution really answers a lot of those questions. That was a, that was a big play in getting this done. And I think for other partners who work in, or have customers who work in global distribution networks, we think about logistics companies, think about fleets, we think about the Original Equipment Manufacturers, the OEM market, these kind of guys can all benefit from the same structures that we’re talking about here, where they’re able to get a kind of single simple solution to answer those challenges. The other part that I think became really useful here was the fact that while we are connecting in every country, and to your point, Bernie, not every operator has got ubiquitous coverage around the world, actually, we’re able to offer the unsteered version of our Multi-network play in this case, which was really there to pick up the best possible network at points of installation. You know, the device chooses what’s the best network available, not steered by a commercial reason, but more steered by a quality reason, which helped to deliver this for the for the customer going, going forward.

Bernie McPhillips
You’re right, Dan, I think the part of the testimony that they graciously gave to us following the project as well, I think, very humbling. But also, it just really reminds us that the partners, these technology partners, our solution partners as we call them, connectivity isn’t necessarily their game. But what we do is allow them to focus on what they’re good at. So if we can just kind of use a little extract from this, it says, Pangea, our connectivity partner of choice, they’ve tangibly improved our service, and coverage isn’t a hassle at all anymore. Now we can focus on our products, rather than worrying about the setup. Now, doesn’t that really remind us what we’re here to do, and the partners that we work with, and what’s important to them. We’re specialists in connectivity so our partners don’t need to be, we take all of the hassle out of these deployments, we take all of the pain out and that’s, you know, clearly what they were feeling beforehand. And to use words like that “isn’t a hassle anymore,” obviously, it must have been previously and to focus on products, rather than worry about the setup. So they were having to worry so much about the setup, will it work? Different APN configurations, depends on where the device was going to go, and therefore what SIM was going in it, what country it was going to go to, just managing that. And for us to be able to make that simple. Make that deployment a doddle take all the hassle out using their words, again, allow them to focus on their product, because that’s what they’re there to do, they’re there to innovate, to sell product. Connectivity is needed for them to make it work. But it’s not core to kind of their speciality. So I just found that just exceptionally humbling and a stark reminder of the great work that we do here at Pangea.

Dan Cunliffe
Yeah, let’s talk about something that’s kind of adjacent to this case study, which was, the whole reason they started speaking to us is because they were already trying to get ahead of the game on the turn off of 3G and 2G services from the operators globally. For those of you who pay attention to this sort of thing, three of the four major networks in the UK, for example, are turning off their 2G and 3G side to their cellular network next year, and leading into 2024. So this is actually a very, very real happening in the market. And it affects not only, I guess, people can sometimes think of smart metres. But actually any device that only has a 3G modem in it is going to be affected by this because what will happen is, that solution won’t be able to work anymore, because the cellular interface for 3G will not be available. Bernie, you spent a few more years than me at O2, and they’re obviously one of the big players in the market. But Vodafone, EE, Three, they all gonna have the same structure coming their way, which is returning of 2G and 3G because they want to refarm that spectrum for the other types of products. And Bernie was just recently on a webinar, again, this man is everywhere being used for his knowledge on the subject. Do you want to take the people through where you thought 2G and 3G opportunities lie and kind of what are the alternative technologies?

Bernie McPhillips
Yeah, most definitely. I mean, there’s the seismic waves of change coming our way in our industry constantly, and those waves at the moment are 2G/3G Sunset, PSTN Switch-off, and the proliferation of 5G. While some of the these technologies are being sunsetted, while others emerge, I think it’s safe to say our industry and the channel as we so affectionately call it. When we’re faced with challenges, we see nothing but opportunity. And that’s all that this represents. So we think of the 2G, and probably to much of an extent the 3G networks, kind of like the PSTN of the cellular networks, absolutely revolutionary in the day, serve their purpose. But they’re kind of the applications that we run over these networks now are so data hungry for bandwidth and speed and low latency, that they’ve kind of served the purpose to an extent and like you say, you know, the network’s want to refarm that spectrum and push that into 4G/5G. From what I gather, and some insight from the networks, 2G and 3G is more expensive for them to run. So it doesn’t tend to perform as well from a network point of view. But it is exceptionally reliable, revolutionary in its day. We thank it for its service. But it’s kind of you know, time that it steps to one side allowing 4G and 5G to kind of take its place. So where’s the opportunity then for the 2G and 3G switch off? Well, IoT is a phrase that’s been around since the 90s, coined famously by a guy called Kevin Ashton, M2M, another acronym, just what we need in our industry, been around even longer. That means there’s lots of devices that have you know, this isn’t a new thing. This isn’t something that Pangea kind of just dreamt up, when we were formed seven or eight years ago, a lot of these devices have been around and installed for a long, long time. That was the whole purpose of M2M, you deploy long term battery, they can be out in the field for a very long time. But now these devices are no longer going to connect. It’s nothing to do with the SIM card, the device itself, the modems within them, so for the first time, in a long time, the users or the providers of these devices have no choice but to visit them in order to swap out the device for something that’s 4G and 5G compatible. So when that device is visited by an engineer for the first time in a long time potentially, it’s accessible, it’s been opened up or replaced, the SIM card is now up for grabs. Because these devices, hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of them connected all over the UK, all over Europe, all over the world, have largely been out of touch, out of reach to all of us, these legacy devices, because it’s simply too expensive for somebody to go out and change, and the cost of change is prohibitive. Now the users and the providers have no choice. Engineers have to go out. So open warfare on the SIM card. So what an opportunity for us and our partners and the channel to be able to provide the connectivity for these devices, that have for all too long been out of our reach, and now very firmly going to be in our reach. Some wonderful conversations to have with our solution partners and the providers of these technologies, right?

Dan Cunliffe
Yeah, no massive you hit the nail on the head. And I think there aren’t many times when there is or when there are I suppose compelling events, like we’ve mentioned the PSTN switch off, I think everyone kind of is talking about that. But actually the 2G/3G Sunset is sooner and quite arguably, probably a higher volume, when it comes to this, because of the global side related to it in terms of where people go. Probably something just kind of bringing it back to this particular opportunity that we delivered. And this case study, you know, big focus was on how do you manage things across 85 different countries, I think, you know, we particularly pride ourselves in trying to find the right solution for the right requirement. And a big part of that was identifying how we can keep it simple. One SIM that was specifically built and delivered to adhere to the requests of the customer across these countries, data amounts, when it can be active or inactive. But most importantly, all delivered through our portal where the customer could have the same management side of it, they can view usage, they can troubleshoot and make sure that things were all okay. And for those of you listening in, you know, being able to deliver this across so many different countries is actually not that difficult when you put the care that we did into creating the right level of the solution in the beginning and then put through the management portal on the back and has left the customer with us for the best part of five years, they’ve continued to use our service and continue to deploy using our services into into whatever countries they tend to be. Bernie do you want to just mention anything on where partners can take inspiration from this type of deal into their own bases, maybe with a focus on UK and perhaps Europe?

Bernie McPhillips
Absolutely. You know, we bring together these case studies and talk about them on the podcast to open up conversations around different verticals. But quite a lot of the time, the technology underneath it remains completely the same. Multi-network SIMs allow your device to connect based on signal strength, so lots of resilience. Real time management through our IoT portal, static IPs if needed, we can apply content filtering at network level. And we just believe you can apply that to almost every business vertical on any geography around the world that you could possibly think of. So we’re not for a moment just sat here saying everybody needs to go and try and find this exact opportunity in their customer base. It’s more about the underlying technology and how you can apply it to anything. We’ve produced some amazing collateral which our partners can get hold of by contacting me, you Dan, their account manager, just the employee to get in touch in some way to bring to life what we call the mobile data world. Every business vertical you could think of, and a whole range of devices that aren’t mobile phones, but they need connecting. Everything from heating, ventilation and air conditioning to electronic point of sale devices, security barriers, door entry systems, CCTV cameras, we can bring all of that to life. So we just hope that the case studies in some way inspire. There are 17 case studies on our website, and more to come. And every one of them is worth over a million pound to our partner in contract value. So I don’t know how many times we need to bust the myth that there’s no money in IoT. We absolutely do that on a daily basis speaking to our partners, if you do get in touch, what we’ll do is make it specific to you, we’ll talk to you about the types of customers that you’ve sold to, a reminder you that we’re channel only, we only work with partners, and we’ll never sell direct to end users. So you can trust us implicitly and talk to us about your customers and know that we’ve got no interest in engaging them directly. And if you do that, we’ll run deal clinics and help tell you how to find these amazing IoT opportunities within your existing customers, that are literally right under your nose. We’ll help you to qualify them, identify them, win them, we’ll stand shoulder to shoulder while you close them. And we’ll certainly celebrate once we’ve done that as well. All we need is for you to get in touch you know, this is what we do. We’re totally built around The Channel, totally built around this technology and intelligent mobile data, whether you’re an existing partner and get in touch with myself or your account manager, or you’re new to IoT or don’t currently work with Pangea. Hopefully there’s enough in this podcast alone today to suggest why you should be. So just get in touch, I don’t know how clearly I can put that across Dan.

Dan Cunliffe
Exactly. And I think with that yeah, Bernie touches on, you know, very, very important stuff, then the reasons why we do these podcasts just to give our partner base a little bit of inspiration in terms of, I’ve got a customer like that, I can do something similar equally, you know, we don’t sell anything but IoT and intelligent mobile data. So you should feel very confident in coming with us. Let us help you to deliver that solution for your partner and also guide you particularly through the 2G/3G changes, you’ll be seeing it in our latest HTML email, we’ll be talking about the 2G/3G Sunset, we will be helping with this case study, but also this podcast to just give you guys a little bit more insights on what we can do. Bernie, I think that’s pretty much close it off for us. I will remind everybody that we, you know, we’re very much dedicated to helping the partners in this market. Please do check out our LinkedIn pages, which is Pangea connecting everything. Please do check out our website, which is pangea-group.net. And even easier, just get in touch with Bernie or myself or one of the team if you need to know more, or you want to be able to bring one of your opportunities to us to have a look at. Bernie, thank you so much for sharing your wealth of knowledge with us again on this subject.

Bernie McPhillips
It’s always a pleasure, Dan, great to have you back on the podcast. Hopefully you can join us again next month.

Dan Cunliffe
Yeah, I look forward to it. And for those listening, thanks so much. We do genuinely appreciate it and look forward to sharing a new topic with you next month. I’m Dan Cunliffe, Managing Director of Pangea, thank you so much.