If you’ve been following the M2M space this year, you may have noticed that SIGFOX is making a number of sweeping moves to position itself as a global M2M Telecom Operator. After raising their €15M Series B, Sigfox added former Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon as their President, signaling to many that this company has IPO plans and an industrial future.
In addition to existing networks that cover most of France & The Netherlands, parts of Spain & Russia, as well as, I’m told, the United Kingdom, SIGFOX recently announced plans to lay out a network in the Silicon Valley, a region known not only for having many of the world’s top tech companies, but also for being pioneers in terms of technology use.
The move is a bold one for SIGFOX. If successful, it will provide for the groundwork for building out across the US with an existing client base that has a habit of testing things out in California. However, murmurs of weaknesses in SIGFOX’s network when it comes to two-way communication may be put in the spotlight if SV users detect weakness.
Still, SIGFOX represents a credible threat to all existing ISPs and TelCo players – they have shown that it is possible to circumvent 3G, Wifi, Bluetooth options – the latter of which is the closest competitor (as a standard, not as a company); however, SIGFOX’s long-range, low energy network presents opportunities beyond what exist today. A real Connected World.