GIFT NDOLWANE
JOHANNESBURG – MTN South Africa has projected the country’s wholesale machine-to-machine (M2M) operations to increase significantly to R1, 2 billion by next year.
It is currently estimated at R350 million.
Mariana Kruger, General Manager for Private Sector at MTN Business South Africa, said given the ability to automate many monitoring and control functions through intelligent devices, agriculture was a prime target for leveraging M2M capabilities.
Whether collecting data from sensors connected to production machinery, livestock, vehicles, dam level or soil moisture monitors, M2M technology offers farmers an opportunity ripe for the picking.
The automation of basic functions allows producers to deploy their workforce to tasks in which they can further increase production output.
Telecommunications providers such as MTN have responded to M2M developments in agriculture and other sectors by providing platforms and networks dedicated to carryout IoT connections and data.
Leveraging on these expected developments, MTN is making a significant investment into a Pan African Internet of Things (IoT) platform, not only to inspire innovative thinking and enable growth of our clients, but also to provide enterprises with greater control and advanced management features for their connected devices and SIM cards.
In addition to providing this platform, MTN – through MTN Business – has also introduced initiatives such as the Mind-2-Machine Challenge to encourage developers to create scalable and relevant business solutions that solve real-world problems.
Adroit Technologies, the winner of last year’s inaugural challenge, developed an app that monitors, controls and manages geographically distributed generator sites by inspecting power, fuel and alarm systems.
“Given the widespread use of stand-alone power systems in agriculture, this solution is bound to find ready application throughout the sector,” Kruger said.
– CAJ News