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Ericsson has launched its critical communications broadband portfolio for service providers, enabling service providers to meet the business-critical and mission-critical needs of industries and public safety agencies as digitalization and modernization of land mobile radio communications increases. 

When communication is disrupted by minutes, seconds, or even milliseconds, it can have huge consequences for business operations, or serious implications for public safety. The need for fast and reliable communication is therefore paramount. Such critical communications are used in many areas: from first responders and nationwide emergency services to workforce safety in enterprises.




There is a growing demand for business- and mission-critical broadband for such use cases. Service providers need to deliver the highest level of availability, reliability and security to meet this demand.To meet critical communications users’ needs, Ericsson has developed a new portfolio comprising three offerings: Critical Network Capabilities; Critical Broadband Applications; and Flexible Deployments for both local private networks, and nationwide mission-critical LTE networks.

Per Narvinger, Head of Product Area Networks, Ericsson, says: “We see growth opportunities for service providers and government operators by addressing new segments with LTE/5G networks. Our critical broadband portfolio will enable our customers to effectively secure the critical communication needs of sectors such as public safety, energy and utilities, transportation, and manufacturing.”

Critical Network Capabilities

This offering includes advanced features for critical network performance and covers the following: high network availability; multi-network operation with spectrum sharing techniques; and coverage and capacity for critical applications. It also includes network security capabilities that ensure network services are maintained even when the infrastructure is under attack. Finally, quality of service, priority and preemption all guarantee latency performance and capacity requirements during high load and congestion. The critical network capabilities include new features that simplify the rollout of broadcasting services across nationwide areas. Another new feature enables radio access sites to operate in fallback mode, should the network connection fail. This offering also includes deployable systems that allow temporary coverage for disaster recovery and operations in rural areas without existing coverage.

Critical Broadband Applications 

This offering covers Ericsson Group-Radio that provides mission-critical push-to-talk, data and video services. This will enable, for example, blue light personnel such as the police to be more effective in performing community services that require advanced mobile broadband.

Flexible Deployments for Private Networks

New business models are emerging for industries. From owning and operating their own networks, critical industries are now procuring private networks and services that leverage service providers’ existing network assets and operations – without compromising required local control. Ericsson’s flexible deployments for private networks range from network slicing to fully dedicated networks, enabling service providers to offer scalable, critical broadband network solutions and services for critical industries.Ericsson also offers Managed Services for private networks, with solutions based on AI and automation that predict and prevent events while reducing OPEX.

These solutions enable service providers to reduce time-to-market and onboard new industries, while securing critical service level agreements.Critical broadband will enable industries to increase efficiency through the following: enhancing workforce productivity and safety; massive onboarding of devices and sensors; real-time location of assets and equipment; and data collection to boost equipment and personnel performance and avoid downtime.


Thomas Lynch, Executive Director at IHS Markit, says: “The critical communications industry is developing ways to deliver critical mobile broadband solutions for professional users, augmenting today’s critical voice communications. Through its new portfolio, Ericsson is empowering service providers to address this growing segment by leveraging their existing LTE infrastructure and operations in an affordable and scalable manner.”

 

A partnership between ERP company Acumatica, and cloud-based field sales management and mobile sales solutions Skynamo will give sales teams access to inventory, product and customer information and ability to capture and submit customer information and orders.
As an Acumatica Independent Software Vendor (ISV), Skynamo is working with Acumatica resellers to implement and support the business’ combined field sales solution to its existing and prospective customers. The partnership will enable any kind of manufacturer, wholesaler or distributor with a team of sales reps to benefit from synchronised Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data functionality, which reps can access while on the road.
Skynamo’s field-sales app enables reps to access product stock levels, pricing, discounts and inventory data when visiting a customer site. This empowers sales reps to remotely submit orders, allow for customer visits to be recorded, and for notes from customer interactions to be accurately captured – all from a mobile device. It also uses mobile and GPS technology to give managers real-time visibility into sales activity in the field, while greatly reducing the number of administrative tasks for sales reps that tend to take their time away from building relationships and selling to customers.
“Our partnership means that Acumatica customers will be able to improve the quality and volume of customer data and sales activity information they have access to by giving sales reps a much easier way of capturing and acting on it in the field,” said Brian Howe, Alliances Director for Skynamo. “Acumatica customers will benefit from an increase in sales revenue as a direct result of enabling field sales reps to visit more customers and spend more time with them thanks to Skynamo’s time-saving mobile sales functionality.”
“Skynamo’s cloud-based mobile-first solution supports our mission to deliver adaptable cloud and mobile technology to the market and enable every customer to have a complete, real-time view of their business anytime, anywhere, on any device,” said Christian Lindberg, VP of Partner Solutions for Acumatica. “Our partnership enables customers with field sales reps to derive more value from their investment in Acumatica and for our resellers to offer additional functionality and services to our customer base.”
Skynamo is a mobile sales app that reduces administrative tasks for field sales reps and improves accuracy of data and orders collected in the field, so they can sell more. It also provides sales managers with insight into field sales activity in order to coach sales reps and improve sales. Among the many problems solved by the Skynamo sales app are inaccurate orders, inaccurate data collected in the field, lack of visibility into sales activity, poor sales performance and lost sales opportunities.

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IoT connectivity and remote monitoring, used by companies to monitor the safety of their lone workers, straddles into medical sphere to keep tabs on patients' health. 
The number of remotely monitored patients grew by 41% to 16.5 million in 2017 as the market acceptance continues to grow in several key verticals, according to research by Berg Insight.

This number includes all patients enrolled in mHealth care programs in which connected medical devices are used as a part of the care regimen. Connected medical devices used for various forms of personal health tracking are not included in this figure. Berg Insight estimates that the number of remotely monitored patients will grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 31.0% to reach 83.4 million by 2023.   The two main applications are monitoring of patients with sleep therapy devices and monitoring of patients with implantable cardiac rhythm management (CRM) devices. These two segments accounted for 82% of all connected home medical monitoring systems in 2017.






The number of of remotely monitored sleep therapy patients grew by 37% in 2017, mainly driven by Philips and ResMed that together dominate the sleep therapy market. The CRM market is led by companies such as Medtronic, Boston Scientific and Abbott that started to include connectivity in CRM solutions more than a decade ago. Telehealth is the third largest segment with 0.8 million connections at the end of the year.

Leading telehealth hub vendors include Tunstall Healthcare, Resideo (Honeywell), Medtronic, Philips and Qualcomm Life. Other device categories – including ECG, glucose level, medication compliance, blood pressure monitors and others – accounted for just over two million connections. “The most promising segment is medication compliance, which we expect will become the second most connected segment in the next five years”, says Sebastian Hellström, IoT Analyst at Berg Insight.  

More than 60% of all connected medical monitoring devices rely on cellular connectivity today and has become the de-facto standard for most types of connected home medical monitoring devices. The number of mHealth devices with integrated cellular connectivity increased from 7.1 million in 2016 to 10.7 million in 2017.

The use of BYOD connectivity will increase the most during the next six years, with a forecasted CAGR of 48.2%. “BYOD involves low cost and the technology is mostly adopted in patient-centric therapeutic areas such as diabetes and asthma that have younger patient demographics compared to many other chronic diseases. Many of these patients prefer to use their own smartphone as the interface instead of carrying around a dedicated device for remote monitoring”, concluded Mr. Hellström.

The increase of remote monitoring usage across professions, including health and safety, was highlighted in a further report by Berg Insight who found the number of monitored lone workers in Europe and North America reached 900,000 in 2017,

Download report brochure: mHealth and Home Monitoring 

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Artificial intelligence can be applied to enable the better detection of road traffic disturbances in real-time, according to research by the Finnish Transport Agency and Tieto.

The findings were the result of a Proof of Concept experiment conducted by the two organisations in the spring of 2018 that combined LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) measurement technology with sensor fusion and artificial intelligence techniques to analyse traffic flows.

Traffic situations deviating from the usual constitute a significant road safety risk. At present, the automatic monitoring of traffic anomalies tends to be based on camera surveillance, and the most sophisticated solutions focus mainly on the security of tunnels. Currently, artificial intelligence and sensor data systems are not widely used for real-time monitoring of traffic disturbances. Data analysis systems using sensor fusion and artificial intelligence can now provide new opportunities for traffic management centers to obtain a richer real-time view of road conditions and disruptions as they occur.

The experiment was carried out at the Mestarintunneli tunnel in Leppävaara, Espoo. Alongside camera surveillance, LiDAR sensors were installed in the tunnel. Compared to traffic camera footage, LiDAR technology has the advantage of being reliable in different lighting conditions, including low light environments. The desired solution was to detect, for example, stalled vehicles and other disturbances such as people or animals on the road.

The project had a lot of data at its disposal, collected from the normal traffic flow. However, the number of abnormal situations during the measurement period was small, which made it more difficult to develop an artificial intelligence solution.

“In order to model traffic flows, we decided to build a tailored machine learning model based on sensor fusion, and one that also recognises traffic anomalies by comparing them with the normal traffic model. This approach shows that even a smaller set of observations can be used to build virtually functional artificial intelligence solutions,” says Ari Rantanen, Chief Data Scientist, Data Driven Businesses at Tieto.

“Automatic recognition of traffic disturbances is a key requirement for a secure road network. Based on current functional requirements, the most cost-effective system has been traffic camera surveillance with a built-in disturbance detection system. However, we are constantly monitoring the market and introducing new technologies to seek new opportunities and cost-effectiveness,” says Senior Officer Kalle Ruottinen from the Finnish Transport Agency.

The project showed that automated analysis of traffic flows can produce new, near real-time information for different stakeholder needs without significant investments in sensors. In addition to analysing traffic flows, sensor fusion intelligence enables a number of other uses, such as forecasting traffic disruptions and assisting traffic management.

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Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Sensors will be the technology trends most impacting mobile workforces over the next 12 months, say mobile technology buyers in research published by Panasonic.

When asked to rate the importance of technology trends for use by their mobile workforce, buyers rated Big Data (52%) the most important, closely followed by IoT (51%) and Sensor technologies (41%), including atmosphere, temperature and biological sensors. The main drivers for the technologies were improved business efficiency and productivity. 

Unsurprisingly, the mobile device buyers thought that the IT Department would benefit most within the organisation from every technology trend. However, looking at the second department to benefit most threw up some interesting insights. Respondents believe business management would benefit from Big Data, the IoT and Wearable technology. Sales would benefit from virtual reality developments. Logistics from drone technology and Research and Development would benefit from augmented reality, sensor technology, blockchain and artificial intelligence.

Looking further into the future, over the next three years, buyers could clearly see the impact on their mobile workforces of Big Data to improve service offerings, improve processes and reduce costs. With IoT, they saw the mobile workforce benefits as improving processes, improving service offering and helping to improve the functionality of mobile devices.

Considering how mobile devices will need to change over the next five years to take advantage of these new technologies, buyers prioritised improvements in device and data security (43%), processing power (31%) and communications for faster data transfer (31%).

Mobile device buyers also predicted the increasing importance of foldable tablets over the next five years and the continued rise of rugged devices as critical tools for mobile workforces. However, the largest group of buyers did not expect to change the type of mobile devices they were buying until two-to five years out.

However, the adoption of smart technologies for mobile workforces already looks well underway. Many buyers said that the implementation of smart watches, wrist bands and drone use had already been completed or was imminently planned for mobile workforces. 

Cost (27%) and reliability (19%) were the biggest issues preventing organisations from adopting new technologies faster. “Although a wide range of exciting future technologies are being watched closely, there is clear evidence from this research that businesses are adopting and looking to capitalise on the benefits of Big Data, IoT and Sensor technology for their mobile workforces,” said Jan Kaempfer, General Manager for Marketing at Panasonic Computer Product Solutions. “As these technologies are deployed, we move ever closer to the age of Edge Computing, where processing power is required at the edge of the network, much closer to where data is collected. This means the role of the mobile workforce computing device becomes even more critical in the gathering, analysis and communication of data, and the provision of services and in improving productivity.

A copy of the whitepaper, Future Technologies and their Impact on Mobile Workforces and their Devices, can be downloaded here. 

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According to a new research report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the market for lone worker protection solutions and services in Europe and North America is forecasted to grow from €110 million in 2017, to reach more than €260 million in 2022.

The number of users of dedicated lone worker safety devices based on GPS and cellular technology on the European market is estimated to grow from 500,000 users in 2017 to reach 1.1 million users at the end of 2022. In North America, the number of such users is estimated to grow from 155,000 in 2017, to reach 375,000 at the end of 2022. In Europe, app-based solutions are today estimated to account for around 20 percent of all solutions, while in North America more than 40 percent of the solutions are based on apps for smartphones and tablets. In both regions, app-based solutions are forecasted to account for an increasing share of lone worker safety solutions in the coming years.  

The lone worker safety market is led by a handful of specialist companies based mainly in the UK and Canada, where legislation specifically addressing the safety of lone workers has fostered growth. SoloProtect and Send For Help Group has grown to become two of the world’s largest providers of lone worker safety solutions and services. Send For Help Group mainly serves the UK market and operates under the three subsidiaries Peoplesafe, Skyguard and Guardian24. SoloProtect is active in the US, Canada and other parts of Europe in addition to its main UK market. Both SoloProtect and Send For Help Group, also operate their own alarm receiving centre (ARC). Additional companies with notable market shares in the UK include Reliance High-Tech and Safe Apps. In Canada, the main providers of safety devices and services for lone workers are Blackline Safety, Tsunami Solutions and Aware360. Blackline Safety has been known for developing technologically advanced safety devices for lone workers using both cellular and satellite communications technology.

The market drivers for lone worker safety solutions include occupational safety regulations, increasing employee insurance costs and higher awareness of risks associated with lone working. The number of individuals working alone is also expected to grow as businesses strive for increased efficiency. A job previously performed by two persons or more is now being done by a single worker. “Traditionally, lone workers exposed to the highest social or environmental risks have been found in industries such as security and protective services, social care, field service maintenance and in heavy industries such as oil & gas and construction”, says Martin Bäckman, IoT Analyst at Berg Insight. He adds that companies in other industries are now also starting to see the benefits of these services. “There is now an increasing demand for lone worker safety services from employees in retail, financial services, education and more, which fuels market growth”, concludes Mr. Bäckman. 

Download report brochure: People Monitoring and Safety Solutions

 

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Want to know more? Check out our recent podcast featuring Chris Proctor from Oneserve and Mark Glover Deputy Editor at Field Service News, discussing the role IoT can play in lone worker safety...

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BigChange acquires two companies: Labyrinth Logistics Consulting and Trace Systems to gain world-class software and consulting expertise with strategic acquisitions whilst strengthening their team and service offering; adds over 100 organisations to customer base

BigChange, the mobile workforce technology company, today announced that it has gained valuable new software and consulting capabilities, as well as over 100 new customers, with the acquisition of two UK-based businesses.

BigChange has acquired Labyrinth Logistics Consulting, an award-winning supply chain and logistics consultancy based in Royal Leamington Spa. Labyrinth provides logistics strategy, compliance and procurement consultancy, alongside a self-audit software application called SilkThread^®, to major transport, logistics, FMCG, and retail organisations in the UK. 

Its directors, Ruth Waring and Jo Godsmark, will join BigChange’s leadership team and spearhead a new consulting arm called BigChange Advisory Plus 

BigChange has also acquired Trace Systems, an established provider of fleet, garage and workshop management software. Trace works with fleet operators across the UK, including plant hire and haulage companies, local authorities and the emergency services. 

The acquisition of Trace, which is based in Coventry, provides BigChange with a world-class asset and stock management capabilities that will be integrated into BigChange’s JobWatch platform. Trace’s founder, Bill Davies, will work as an advisor to BigChange.

Speaking on the acquisitions Martin Port, founder and CEO of BigChange, commented: “We are delighted to complete the acquisitions of Labyrinth and Trace. These businesses are the first that BigChange has acquired since it was launched in 2013 and provide us with more fantastic people, world-class technology, amazing new customers and multi-million revenue boost. They represent a significant milestone for our business and a major boost to our scale up plans.”

Ruth Waring, Managing Director of Labyrinth Logistics Consulting, also commented, saying: “We are very excited to be part of BigChange. It is a strong, growing business that complements our offering very well indeed. As part of BigChange, we can develop a more comprehensive consultancy offering and take it to many more organisations around the world.”

Whilst Bill Davies, Founder of Trace Systems, commented: “Having built a business over 30 years we see the sale of Trace Systems to BigChange as the next chapter in our development.  It will allow us to transform our fleet, garage and workshop software to take full advantage of the latest cloud and mobile technology pioneered by BigChange. This will provide fantastic opportunities for our existing and future customers.”

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KPMG and Blacks Solicitors advised BigChange

For both acquisitions, BigChange was advised by Graham Pearce, Head of Technology at KPMG,  Nigel Hoyle & Richard Parr Partners at Blacks Solicitors in Leeds. Graham Pearce, Head of Technology at KPMG, comments: “I’m thrilled to have helped BigChange cement its position as a leading vendor, adding these exciting capabilities to its portfolio. With these two acquisitions, BigChange will continue to be at the forefront of technology in the UK and the rest of the world.”

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Infradata deploys BroadForward’s Location Based Services (LBS) solution at Telenet, providing access to location information of devices across legacy and next generation mobile networks

Infradata and BroadForward announced today that they have been selected by Telenet to replace the existing legacy LBS system with the BroadForward Location Based Services solution. This allows Telenet, the largest provider of cable broadband services in Belgium who acquired mobile operator BASE in 2016, to expand their ability to provide location information. This is needed for a range of services, including emergency calls for police, firefighting, and ambulance services.

Telenet aims to become the leading converged connected entertainment and business solutions provider in Belgium. Telenet has a track record in delivering disruptive products to the market, specializing in the supply of broadband internet, fixed and mobile telephony services and cable television. Liberty Global, the world's largest international TV and broadband company, has a 56% stake in Telenet.

Infradata is the leading expert and certified reseller of the entire range of BroadForward products, which includes next generation products for routing, interworking, security and number portability. Infradata is selected by Telenet based on their extensive experience in design, implementation and support of BroadForward products.

BroadForward LBS is a software based, multi-protocol solution, designed to manage device location information across legacy and next generation mobile networks. The productized solution includes standardized functions such as GMLC (Gateway Mobile Location Centre), LRF (Location Retrieval Function) and Routing Determination Function (RDF). The solution will later also incorporate the 5G Gateway Mobile Location Centre.

Luk Bruynseels, VP Mobile Technology at Telenet, about selecting Infradata, “Approximately 70 to 80% of all emergency calls are made from a mobile device, and with the network location information we can provide additional information to emergency services so they know where to find people when it matters. As the leading expert in BroadForward products, Infradata successfully replaced the legacy system with BroadForward’s state-of-the-art Location Based Services solution that works in a multi-vendor environment and across network types”.

Infradata Managing Director Nico van Buitenen added: “Mobility continues to grow at an astonishing rate. Two-thirds of the world's population are already connected by mobile devices and IoT devices will grow to nearly 10 billion devices in just a few years from now. Due to the extensive knowledge and experience Infradata has internally on mobile networks, we are able to provide Telenet with a leading Location Based Services solution that works across legacy, current and future networks.”

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Digital disruption is a key buzz phrase in many boardrooms and conferences and field service as a sector is no exception - so it is with much interest we read SavoyStewart.co.uk's analysis of Futurum's research into this area...

Key findings:

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• 1 in 4 businesses struggle to adapt and thrive from technology disruption.
• 36.9% of companies view technology disruption as an opportunity to improve and grow as a business.
• In order to stay ahead of the competition, 50.4% of businesses reported having a proactive ‘opportunity-minded’ approach to new and emerging technologies.
• Only 12% of businesses voiced their concerns of their ability to adapt to digital advancements over the next three years, despite 23.4% rating themselves as Digital Laggards.

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Technology is often thought about in terms of physical devices that are electrical or digital. When in fact, technology encompasses far more than simply tangible objects. New and emerging technologies often impact the value of existing models and services, resulting in digital disruption, which leads to many companies re-evaluating and transforming.

Technology disruption is defined as ‘technology that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry or creates a completely new industry’.

There is currently a high-stakes global game of digital disruption, fuelled by the latest wave of technological advances spurred by A.I and data analytics. As a result, business models within industry sectors are inevitably changing. Despite the fact 19.3% of companies feel that the pace of technological change has made them significantly more competitive in the past three years, a large majority of companies are still struggling to keep up with this change.

As a result, SavoyStewart.co.uk sought to identify whether businesses view technology disruption as an opportunity or threat, though an analysis of the latest research conducted by Futurum*.

Interestingly, it was discovered that 1 in 4 businesses still struggle to keep up with the times and thrive from digital disruption. Despite this, whilst weighing up the opportunity vs. threat of technological disruption, 39.6% of businesses feel that it provides them with new opportunities to improve and grow as a company.

Savoy Stewart determined this was down to the companies approach to technology adaption, with 24.4% surprisingly, admitting to having no approach. Positively, 50.4% of businesses reported to have a proactive ‘opportunity-minded’ approach, ensuring they remain competitive and up to date.

With 25.1% of business seemingly adopting a passive ‘wait and see’ approach, it is unsurprising that 30.7% of companies felt the impact of technological change over the past three years has made them less competitive.

The window of opportunity to gain competitive advantage generally falls inside a window of three years. It is, therefore, critical for business leaders to understand the value of technologically proactive leadership and operational agility. The faster a company can use technology disruption to their advantage, the more likely it is to surge ahead of its competitors.

Surprisingly, whilst 29.5% of companies stated they feel very excited about their ability to adapt over the next three years, only 18.3% rated themselves as ‘Digital Leaders’. These individuals are highly proactive and agile business leaders who are ahead in their strategic and operational anticipation of the technological change facing them and their organisation.

Thereafter, 35% of businesses feel somewhat optimistic about their ability to adapt. Which is not far off the 36.3% of companies that rated themselves to be ‘Digital Adopters’; easily adaptable and proactive in their approach to evolve with technology disruption.

Following suit, 23.4% are a little concerned about their ability to adapt over the next three years, indicating their company is adaptable but passive in their approach. Which is once again close in correlation to the amount of businesses that rated themselves to be ‘Digital Followers’ at 22%.

Lastly, 12% of businesses stated they are very worried about their ability to adapt to technological change. Which is interesting considering almost double (23.4%), rated themselves to be ‘Digital Laggards’.

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