What's Next presented by Sigfox South Africa - Gregory Rood on the future of smart connectivity

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to another episode of what's Next. My name is Aki Anastasiou and it's a great pleasure to welcome, uh, back to the what's Next studio here at Broad Media. Gregory Roet, who is the chief Executive officer of SIGFOX South Africa. It's one of my favorite, favorite products, uh, ever because I just love the technology and what it does and, and what it enables you to do as an organization, as an individual, you name it. It just gives you the eyes and information on your business that uh, most technologies can't give you. So Greg, welcome, nice to see you again.

Speaker A: Good morning. Thank you for having me again. I really appreciate it.

Speaker B: So, uh, throughout this interview series we've spoken a lot about intelligent connectivity, operational visibility, which is something that you guys at SIGFOX do so well as a technology. It's, it's, it's so simple, but yet it's so complex. Right, but today we're talking about something very different. It's a, a single use communication model. I was trying to think about what on earth is Greg going to talk about today? What exactly is this? How does it work?

Speaker A: So what we, what we found traditionally was in order to, to monitor an environment, uh, you are required to take out a medium to long term contract, 12, 24, 36 month contract, if you think along the lines of like your cell phone contract for example. And what we identified was there was a need in the market for a short term contract or a finite number of messages or alerts that needed to be sent in an environment. And traditionally or historically, it hasn't really been a market that we've been able to enter because the cost of the equipment's been too high, battery costs were too high, et cetera, et cetera. And largely thanks to the electric vehicle market, I mean the prices of battery and power supplies have come down astronomically. We're now at a point where the hindrance is actually the contract for connectivity. So we had to address the need for providing a short term contract at a very low entry point, uh, price point to be able to now allow the technology that's developed and has matured to be able to complement it and go into the field.

Speaker B: So almost somebody doesn't want something for a long period of time, but you want to, you want the flexibility and almost like a disposable contract, it's a,

Speaker A: it's a, it's a single use disposable contract. That's okay, that's exactly what it is. Um, like I give you an example we, uh, if you have consignment stock in a hospital of a, of, of a pacemaker, now, you know that's a life and death situation. You, you can't, if, if a patient comes in, emergency heart procedure, you, you, you go to the storeroom, you open up the, the box for, uh, to, to get your pacemaker out. You can fit it into the patient. Now if there isn't a pacemaker, that there's a very real chance that the patient could pass away. But these pacemakers could sit on the shelf for 12, 24, 36. You're only going to open the box when you need it, you know, so a lot of the stock is given to the hospitals on consignment.

Speaker B: And it's sitting in a storeroom.

Speaker A: And it's sitting in a storeroom. And if a sales rep or a stock, uh, controller doesn't get there in time to replace the pacemaker or replenish the stock, the next patient could lose out. So we've, we've got a, a single use tag. You stick it on the box. As soon as that box is opened, a message gets sent, sent back to, to the, uh, to the factory or, or the warehouse saying, this box has been opened, you need to replace the stock and you could deliver another unit tomorrow.

Speaker B: That's brilliant. So. Okay. No, I get it. So instead of you paying six months to make sure you're, you got to wait six months for somebody to open that box.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: The time of the contract only happens after you open it immediately. So it could be sitting on the shelf for six months. You're not paying for that six months.

Speaker A: Exactly. You pre purchase the contract up front. It's a finite number of messages, up to a maximum of 720 messages if you want to track an asset short term. So if something gets stolen and running off with it, it'll ping the network 720 times before the battery will expire. But in the event of a single message being sent, um, that device could sit on the shelf for 12, 24 months. But you've paid for this single experience, this 21 day contract. You've paid for it up front.

Speaker B: Okay, so as soon as it's open,

Speaker A: the 21 day start.

Speaker B: The 21 day start. So I'm thinking of so many use case scenarios. I mean, logistics would be one of them. I mean, that's a great one. In a stock room. Uh, I'm thinking of a container, for example. You know, you could use it there. There's so many use cases here.

Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, you you have a, you have a shipping container or, or like a long haul removal company. You could potentially seal your, your cargo when they pick it up at your house, or you close the container in, in the shipping yard. And only in the event of someone tampering with that will a message get sent. So you don't need to take out a 12 month contract when you're only going to have this cargo. That's, let's say you're moving, moving house or shipping. You, you, you only need it for a finite period of time, maybe seven days. But once the contract activates, it'll run for a full 21 days even though you only need it for a single day.

Speaker B: So why 21 days? I mean can you extend it? Can you make it shorter? Uh, is it adaptable?

Speaker A: Uh, no, we, it because what we found that once you go over 30 days, like what would you need to track for a longer period of times then our traditional model of the 12, 24, 36 then comes into play. So we, we've, we've tried to create it that the longer it's on the network, the more expensive it becomes naturally because it's, it's a, uh, it's a, an expense on the network. So we try to keep it at a short enough period of time that you could get your full economic value add out of it the, the full 21 days without having to roll over uh, into the traditional model.

Speaker B: So you know, we got, traditionally um, you got your current business model that you mentioned. And um, most people think of connectivity as something continuous. You constantly monitoring it. You, you've taken this, you've turned it over, over the, on its head. No monthly contracts, constant uh, data usage. And you, you're challenging the way that people are thinking about things, but you're giving them another opportunity to track something that is a once off. Basically.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean we're very excited about this because if we, if you think consider something like tracking uh, medicine that into rural clinics that you would typically need to um, you have to keep it in a certain temperature range like penicillin for example. Now you could do, the traditional method would be okay, we're taking out a 12, 24 month contract and we're going to monitor this temperature zone. It has to be within let's say 10 to 12 degrees permanently during transport, even uh, once it reaches the clinic. Now you don't need it to report every hour or every day going I'm at 11 degrees, I'm at 11 degrees, 11 degrees. We're saying let's flip it on its head. So we reduce the bomb cost, the bill of material costs, saying only if the device go, only if that fridge or the penicillin goes out of the 10 to 12 degree range do we send a message. So we completely lowering the barrier to entry in terms of the cost of the actual device.

Speaker B: But are you still getting the same features, Gregory? I mean, uh, you said it will send you a message. Will it send you a GPS location as well of where it is?

Speaker A: No. You could, I mean you could. There's nothing stopping you.

Speaker B: It's just a message to say this has now been opened.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's, well it's, it's a message on our network. How, how the, the device is designed could be anything. The reason I say let's not talk about the GPS side of it is you, you, you start getting into a, uh, higher battery usage and therefore you want a more expensive device, a more premium device or premium, but a device that, that, that'll cost more in terms of the bill of materials. So then you're probably looking in the realm of a, of a continuous contract. Yeah, I'm talking about a, a paper tag that, you know, we're talking maybe 70, 80 rand.

Speaker B: Is that what it is? Like a piece of sellotape?

Speaker A: Literally, uh, it's, literally, it's thinner than your credit card. I mean the, the battery technology now is insane.

Speaker B: But you see, the thing is that, you know, through our past conversations, the beauty about the technology that Sigfox does is it's very customizable. You can build whatever you want, whatever you think in your brain you can actually build. In this case, it's very, you know, it's, it's got that specific use case scenario. So where I'm going with this is that when businesses are designing things and they want the solution and that solution and this Iot development, sometimes I think that we overthink things and we over complicate things and we don't get the end result we want.

Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. I mean it's, it often it's, it's over engineered and your, so and then your bill of materials goes up and your monthly connectivity goes, uh, up. We talk about, you know, granularity in, in the data. If for you, if we had to look at something like a water meter, I mean a reading once a day to let you know what your consumption was yesterday is sufficient, do you really need to, and that's an outlier example I'm using. But do you really need to know what your, what your Water consumption is every single hour. Don't you rather want to know if I have a leak, send me a message. If I have a runaway tap, send me a message. And just every day let me know how much water I used. Don't need to know every hour that the gardener used 50 liters of water. So we're reverse engineering how we, how, how we're viewing the product. It's about reporting on outlier events as opposed to reporting on um, the norm.

Speaker B: But if you're an organization that's utilizing a lot of water and you need those metrics, you can still do it.

Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean that's the traditional model. We're very favor, you know, our traditional model works really well. Um, but I'm trying to identify a segment in the market that doesn't want to have expensive contracts associated to it.

Speaker B: So this is, this is fantastic because what you're now doing, you actually, you're going a little bit deeper. You asking what actually matters, which event actually matters, that's going to be the most critical piece of information that you need. So then if you look at that and you apply the economics to it, this fundamentally changes how we deploy IoT.

Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean you look at uh, uh, an, something like a courier company money delivering a parcel. You traditionally the model has been that we need to get this expense, we need to design an expensive box that will open, that will send messages on, open, close GPS coordinate coordinates, etc. Etc. And then your barrier to entry was really high because your initial capital investment was extremely high. Now we're saying, okay, well let's, let's reverse engineer it, um, and use something that's completely disposable. So we don't need to get this, this container back and we don't need to around, uh, arrange logistics around actually retrieving the, the, the container. Let's just dispose of it afterwards. But we want to know that the parcel was delivered, it was opened and you know, we want a message associated to that. So it's a. We, we're completely redesigning how we, we look at the business model and what we're really excited about is that it enables businesses to completely design the a, uh, solution in a, in a completely new way.

Speaker B: So you, you, you, something technologically has shifted because at the end of the day the, the core of your business is delivering data on certain things that happen within an environment as you have done in your Sigvox network. So what has now changed technologically with this particular, um, single use communication that you talk about, um, and what have you, how have you positioned Sigfox to make this possible? Have you tweaked anything on your network? Has anything changed? Obviously that little piece of technology, you said the size of a credit card, as soon as that's tweaked, it could be a slight little piece of paper, it sends the message through. But something has shifted. You've changed something technologically.

Speaker A: Yeah, we, I mean we had to completely redesign the back end, uh, billing system to, to accommodate this single short term contract. It's a, it's never, it's, it's never been available before, um, Sigfox Globally. This is actually a South African developed product that, that will be distributing to SIGFOX Globally. So it's a, it's a proudly South African homegrown product. And I think, you know, for a long period of time the cost of building a device, um, especially the battery side of it still remained extremely high. Now but Sigfox chipset is, you get it under half a US dollar for a chipset. You know, we're talking eight rand for a chipset. Um, so the battery was always the very expensive part. But as we were talking about earlier with electric vehicles and all the research going into electric vehicles, battery technology has grown exponentially. So the cost of batter have come down dramatically and it's now that we feel the market is now ripe for a single use disposable product.

Speaker B: And it's good. As you say it has 21 day lifespan, up to 720 messages. Explain that one to me.

Speaker A: So it's um, your, if the device, once it's activated, you could, based on the battery size that you, that you equip it with, you could Send up to 720 messages. Using our Atlas and our Bloodhound service that we spoke about last time, you'd be able to get an approximate location of where this asset is. So if it's, if it's an event, uh, associated to theft, for example, or I mean one that it's not a real world solution currently, but one that I really feel that we need to uh, develop with our community is a panic button. So if we, if you think of something like a wristband that your child wears or um, ladies, uh, that are, that are alone, they could have this potentially this panic button that they carry with them. There's no monthly cost associated to it because you've bought it up front. Once off, um, you may use it, you may carry it in your handbag for 18 months before you eventually need to use it. But once you push that panic button, you can Send up to 720 messages on the Sigfox network before that contract will expire. So it's 21 days or 7, 720 messages, whichever comes first. So in the event of somebody potentially being kidnapped or in danger, send these messages out on a rapid basis. Um, let it be alerted to a security company and let them come and find.

Speaker B: Don't think about that one. That's pretty. So this is brilliant. It's a, uh, it's really a prepaid solution. Okay. You don't have to worry about contracts and you can literally say, hey, Sigfox, give me a thousand of these and I can store them for, for years. Right. I mean, what's the life, what's the, what's the shelf life of this?

Speaker A: There's, there's no expiry from our side. So absolutely, you could, you could have this contract for 60 months before you use it. Uh, that'll be. The constraints will be on the, on the battery of the actual device itself, uh, calcification in the battery and that. But, you know, as technology improves, so, so that shelf life will be even longer.

Speaker B: Yeah. This is brilliant because this now changes the barrier to entry for Iot adoption. I'm even thinking of use case scenarios in my house. Like if I've got a safe, for example, I don't open the safe every single day. Uh, I don't have one. But I'm just saying if there's a door that you keep really big valuable stuff and you put one of these things in, uh, you don't, you never open it. As soon as it gets opened, you'll be alerted to say somebody's opened that. The panic button idea, I love that idea.

Speaker A: Uh,

Speaker B: you can think of all sorts of different things, but that barrier to Iot adoption now just shifts.

Speaker A: Uh, we're very excited about this. We did a case study with the movement of high, uh, value liquor because there's no serial numbers attached to it. So it has become a prime target the, the theft of of high value liquor. So simply the box. You've got your box of six bottles of wine or, um, you know, bottles of, of.

Speaker B: Well, six bottles of whiskey is, uh, you know, a very pop. Yeah, you're looking at nearly 10, 000 rand in a box.

Speaker A: 100%. And now you, and now you take this, uh, the sticker tag with a nine rand contract, um, under 100 rand to, to develop this device that, that's thinner than a credit card, you stick it on top of the box and as soon as that box is opened, it'll, it'll send a message and it'll start sending messages until either the 21 days or the 720 messages runs out. So if it has been stolen, you'll be able to track that box and it's a, it's a once off device. You don't need to get the box back, you don't need to get the device back. It's disposable. So it does uh, I mean traditionally you would have had to have taken out a very long term contract, 12 month contract for one shipment of high value liquor. Now we're talking about a single event, 21 day contract. The shipments obviously arrived way before 21 days.

Speaker B: So I'm thinking of use case scenarios now. So let's say for example, you are a liquor company and you've got a um, you know, you're delivering 100 cases of whiskey, which is a lot of money and it's not uncommon for a business to do that. So are you able to build APIs around this for example, to say as soon as it's opened, you know, our, our logistics system gets a notification, it's taken off the stock list, it's arrived safely. Are you able to do all of that stuff on the back end once you get that information?

Speaker A: Uh, the, the traditional APIs and that, that we have in place for our channel, uh, that are using it, where we're reporting every hour etc. Those are all still fully functional, readily available with this disposable contract. The only thing that's changed is uh, our billing methodology on the short term contract. But all of the bells and whistles and features that are associated with our normal um, API are still fully available. So yes, you'll be able to integrate it into any of your backend, uh, software suites yourself. You'll be able to use the, the Bloodhound and, and Atlas LOC Geolocation, uh, services. So you'll be able to track your, your asset within an approximate range. Yeah, all of those features are still readily available.

Speaker B: So I was thinking about the container thing that you mentioned earlier. I mean as a use case scenario, it's actually a brilliant one because container arrives in the port and it has to go from point A to point B. And as soon as it's, that seal's broken, you know, when it's reached point B. That's as simple as it is.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's, there's, there's the, you, you could set the tag so that as soon as it reaches Rotterdam, you'll receive the message, uh, based on the international SIGFOX network. But also once it's on the ship, you don't need to know if it's um, if it's been tampered with. You only need to know if it's been tampered with after it's been sealed in the actual container yard. So I mean it's different use cases obviously. Um, my, the one I'm most fascinated or most passionate about at the moment is, is this panic button. Like whether it's a wristband or, or little device that the ladies carry in their handbag, let it look like a, let it look like lipstick, however. But I do strongly believe that we need to develop that. I think that especially, especially in the rural communities. Um, you know, like we do a lot of work with the clinics and things like that. You know, with the penicillin and the, the medicine. I definitely think that this is a product that should be evolved into it.

Speaker B: Uh, I just want to just ask you very quickly and you clarified what I was thinking earlier in terms of the network being international. So if you put this on a container and you mentioned if it arrives in Rotterdam, it switches over to the international network, which is a big thing. So now your reaches is basically global, right?

Speaker A: Yeah. SIGFOX is represented in over 70 countries around the world. Um, Europe is, is fully densified. So yes, um, uh, any device that is activated in South Africa or developed in South Africa can roam on the SIGFOX network wherever there is a Sigfox network.

Speaker B: Uh, but it's something that you negotiate with the package. Every use case scenario that you use, you say, okay, I'm a moving company. For example, I'm relocating to Australia. I put this on here. When it arrives in Australia, I know that my furniture and that's arrived safely at the one location I can put another one of those tags or devices inside. So when the box arrives at my home where it's supposed to be delivered, then I get another notification. So it's all configurable.

Speaker A: Yes, I mean we do, we do have railing across uh, the countries and I mean we do, we would be able to discuss with the client if they are looking for a roaming solution, we could discuss a package for them. Alternatively, if you're doing like semigration, uh, you're moving from Johannesburg to Cape Town, you, you put your tag on, um, and then as soon as it reaches, let's say Cape Town and they open up the back of the Stutterford van line, you, you'll receive your message knowing that your furniture's arrived.

Speaker B: But Greg, I'm thinking of the dynamics now. Insurance companies, uh, theft, fraud, uh, contamination, insurance disputes, all of those kind of things. You now have got evidence that something has been open. So that must give that reassurance to insurance companies. Just gives them that double security feature about whatever they're transporting. A high value goods item.

Speaker A: Absolutely. There's a, there was an interesting solution that was developed uh, in on the car's ECU where we stuck a Sigfox, uh, the paper tag, stuck it over the ecu. So you, if anybody tries to tamper with the, with the car's ECU, change back the mileage, etc. Etc. You would get the notification. But if no one ever tampers with that car, that message will never ever be sent.

Speaker B: And there's no ways people are going to use that every single day. You don't go there.

Speaker A: Yeah, we don't want them to. I mean you never want them to use it. Right? So that's a classic example of something that will sit in a car for, for years and you should never receive the message. If you receive the message then you know you've, you've had a problem, You've, you've got a problem. But it shifts the, the mindset away from having to pay this monthly fee to, to monitor the ECU or protect the ecu, to now saying no, it's a one, it's a once off fee and you protect, you protect it pretty much for life.

Speaker B: Yeah. So is this available just for businesses or can I as an individual, uh, say Greg, uh, um, can I buy 10 of these from Sigfox and use them? I'm thinking use case scenarios. I've got an expensive bottle of single malt whiskey, 21 year old at home. It sits in my cabinet that only I'm allowed to. So I'm thinking of that case scenario. In my case, is it, is it,

Speaker A: is it something that I could use, um, to develop? The back end of the API would uh, would probably not suit a consumer once off. But I mean you could very, we could put you in touch with one of our channel partners that would have developed that has the API in place so you'd easily be able to get that solution. There's no doubt in my mind. Um, you would rather just uh, use it as a consumer through one of our channel partners as opposed to direct to public. But nothing's stopping you from doing that.

Speaker B: I think I was just thinking out loud. But the reality is that there are some Brilliant solutions that you could use this for. And I, and as we talk, I mean there's stuff that's popping into my hand, my head. I think of cold chain, you know, uh, companies that are transporting frozen goods or very, you know, temperature sensitive goods. We mentioned the healthcare stuff for like the pacemaker thing for example, which is a great example. But think about the cold chain and, and national supermarket chains or manufacturers delivering food. There are great, great use case scenarios there for that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean if you consider a chicken for example, um, if that goes out of temperature range, if it loses its cooling at some point, you know, the chicken could become toxic. So you don't need to monitor it um, on an hourly basis. You just need to know that if it loses its refrigeration, we need to be alerted to it, that potentially the shipment's gone bad like you're describing. Um, or if we look in the cold chain, in the agricultural sector, um, methane gases given off from like bananas and avocados, et cetera, you could monitor that so that if there is ah, an unhealthy level of methane, you want to receive an alert. But this must be a disposable tag that you can get, that you can dispose of at the end of the transportation of the fruits and veggies. Um, and you don't need to recover it and reuse it. And there's no long term contract. So it's a once off used for the shipment. If we look, if we go back to the panic button story, someone living in a rural area can't afford to pay a monthly subscription for a panic button that they may never use. So you wouldn't get traction in that environment because they just simply can't afford it and may, may need to use the panic button. May not need to use the panic button. Um, now we're saying, okay, well potentially is developer, uh, a panic button that sits in your handbag, no subscription to it. You've completely lowered the barrier to entry. And who is most hard hit in those kind of environments? It is the poorer communities. So this is something that we can now provide a service to the poorer communities and, and actually safeguard and protect them. So I very excited about it.

Speaker B: Look, I, I'm super excited just listening to you because the, the opportunities are endless. I mean we've just touched on a few, we touched on that panic button. There's the, you know, in a hospital situation, whether it's a uh, pacemaker, whether it's something that's going to be used in obstetrics, for example, There's a lot of expensive stuff that doctors use that is just waiting there to be used. So just the fact that you can develop this and open it up and get a signal to know that it's been opened, uh, the cold chain, I mean, it's, the possibilities are endless. I attended your conference, so I know your developers are crazy developing these things and these guys come up with the most incredible innovations. I, I think this must have opened this massive box for your developers to really innovate on scale here and come up with even newer solutions that are going to work on the Sigfox network.

Speaker A: Yeah, they're very excited about it and it did. We, we have had to, to do a bit of an education process. I mean, why is that? Because, you know, commercially everyone thinks that you, that you need to report on everything and to discuss the, the concept is not so much that at the developer level because the developers get it. I mean, like you said, we've got a very strong, uh, channel, um, that supports us and, and, and we have a lot of fun with them and we, we design some really cool, funky stuff. But from a commercial perspective, having to, having to change the mindset to saying, okay, we're not going to report on everything, we're going to just report on exception. Takes a bit of getting used to, to, to wrap your head around that idea that, you know, if something is normal, leave it. I only want to know the exception reporting. I mean, it's, you know, we experience it daily. I mean, you know, your alarm, m. Your home alarm will only let you know if there's an exception. So it's, there is a bit of a learning curve in that. It's just, it's just how you view things differently. But yeah, the developers are, are having tons of fun.

Speaker B: So is, is this, is this, um. I don't know if I can call it a breakthrough, but this new product offering that you had at Sig have at Sigfox, is it for everyone or is it, um, only for certain kinds of engineers and developers and, you know, certain niched product innovators that are going to develop on that Sigfox network? Or can anybody do it?

Speaker A: No, any, Anyone can develop on it. Um, I think the, the big breakthrough is going to be that we're lowering the, the cost, the, the entry point as to where IoT can be deployed. You know, uh, traditionally, because of the contracts and, and the size of the battery required to, to send messages regularly, your, your, your entry cost on, on the price or the value of the asset that could be tracked was uh, higher. With this, we're bringing that down and we're opening up a market at the, at the, almost like, don't want to say fmcg, but at the lower value asset range, uh, we're opening up a market that didn't previously exist. That's what we're really excited about because it will definitely be like high volume, low messages, smaller devices, but high volume in terms of the number of tags being deployed.

Speaker B: Yeah. And now you can do large scale deployments and you can have your technology sitting all over the place just ready to be deployed. Out of interest, you mentioned that battery, um, the lifespan. It could be years. You could, you could buy something today and in four years when that box is opened, you'll get a signal.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's, it, it will come down to, to the quality.

Speaker B: To the quality. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: Because you, you know, if you, if, if a battery is fully charged and stays fully charged in your, in your drawer, like a cell phone, if you leave a cell phone for years, forget about the usage of it, eventually the battery does calcify a little bit. But you know, the technology is advancing so fast because of, you know, large, thanks to guys like Elon Musk and the electric vehicles and that um, battery technology is advancing so fast that we are, we're seeing improvements all the time in terms of shelf life, uh, in terms of performance, uh, reduction in size, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker B: But I mean in our previous interview you mentioned, you know, some of the use case scenarios that you know, in your other businesses that are constantly sending information. Those batteries last for years. You know, in some cases you've had batteries lasting for, I think was it over 10 years? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, so we've got water meters out in the field that are, that are reporting um, every day reporting the consumption and um, it's over 10 years and it's still going strong.

Speaker B: So this is what you, you were, you, you were, you mentioned it a couple of times in the last interview and it left an impression on me is that, that uh, you know, SIGFOX is no longer just a dumb network. Not that it's been a dumb network, but I think that with the advances in AI, you're now taking the data and you're making a lot more, um, a lot more informed decisions on what the data is doing. So that's a very important um, you know, departure from where the network was before.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean we've, sigfox, South Africa in particular has done a lot of development in uh, enhancing and creating proper economic value add for our, uh, channel partners by developing these new services which are, you know, homegrown South African products that we are deploying worldwide. So you know, the Bloodhound software was an enhancement. It was, we, we realized that it was just not good enough to just be the IoT network and the communication channel. We, our partners, wanted more. So we've developed and spent, invested heavily into the network in terms of enhancing services outside of just standard connectivity. So you know, it's not just that we're this, you know, we are the largest IoT network in the world. Sigfox, uh, South Africa is the largest open access IoT network in South Africa. Um, you know, we, uh, our reach even extends past our borders and trickles into, into our neighboring countries. You know, we're sitting at, at almost 2, 000 base stations around the country, 91% coverage on 93% population coverage.

Speaker B: So it's impressive.

Speaker A: It's, it's a massive network. And so we've been, we've invested heavily in providing economic value adds over and above the network because the network was vast. But we wanted to make it even better.

Speaker B: So it's, it's moved from, you know, offering just simply connectivity. Now you're offering business outcomes, you're offering economic value. So there's tangible benefits to using the technology today. Um, and, and I think you've used that before in our last interview. The economic value add that your technology now adds to your product.

Speaker A: Yeah, it enables our channel partners to develop more powerful product and that's what we want to see. We want to, we want to assist our channel to develop the best products that they can, you know, if they, if they can think of it, we want to help them develop it. That's, you know, that's ultimately our goal if you, if you think it, it can be done.

Speaker B: So if somebody's watching this and, or they meet you in the lift and say, gregory, I uh, watched your interview and what's next? And um, you were talking about the single device concept. Anybody that might have doubts about this product in terms of not what it can do, but uh, the potential that it has, what would you tell those people?

Speaker A: Um, I mean, the starting point is to go onto our website, Sigfox sa Co Za or, um, give us a call and let's set up a session, uh, with our product team and uh, our channel team and we'll help you. If you're a channel partner, we'll get you on board. We'll go through the API process with you and the training on the back end. If you're a consumer that has an idea, we'll introduce you to some of our strong channel partners that'll help develop a product product for you. So yeah, I mean we're, you know, we're, we're always open to, to discussing ideas. Um, I mean there's no, there's, there's millions of ideas out there and uh, you know, we're always wanting to engage and, and coming up with funky fun solutions.

Speaker B: Well, this is fundamentally going to change the way businesses and industries think about communication, monitoring their devices, etc. What would your um, message be to engineers and entrepreneurs right now who are already forming ideas in their heads? How do they take them to the next level? What's your message to them?

Speaker A: Give us a shout. I mean let's have the cup of coffee, let's run through the different permutations of what we can offer in terms of the products. Um, we'll figure out where the limitations are and we'll figure out a way to bash it down and get it going. Um, we are extremely confident of what we can deliver as a network. And, and I think our, the limitations are quickly dropping, the walls are coming down and um, I mean the time for IoT, especially, you know the buzzword being AI at the moment, you know, IoT and AI is, it's a, it's a marriage, it's a marriage made in heaven. It's just the perfect, perfect combination.

Speaker B: So a business that might be watching this right now, they're in logistics or whatever the case may be, they've come up with a great idea, um, and they want to get in touch with you guys, you guys provide the technology solution and then you've got all your developers that provide, that make the solutions. How does one get in contact with Sigfox to say, hey, you know Greg, we've got this, we want this developed. Do you help them make that happen and put them in touch with the right people? How does it all work? If somebody uh, on the outside sees something, I want this developed for my business. How would they go about it?

Speaker A: Yeah, we, we've purposely positioned ourselves as, as the hub in the wheel that you know, we, we are the network but we will assist you in providing who the right channel partner is to, to build the device for you, who the right software house is to, to help you develop the software. If you haven't, if you, if you're not developing it yourself in house. Now it's very important for us that we follow the entire pre sale cycle and pair the various vendors together to give you the solution that you want as an end user, customer, business or corporate that isn't necessarily wanting to go and build their own devices but wants a Sigfox solution. Our pre sales team will manage that from start to end as a full turnkey solution. It's very important for us that part of it Fantastic.

Speaker B: Well listen, congratulations on the new innovation. I think uh, it's super exciting. It changes the Dynamics of the IoT industry. Ah, you're still going to be offering all your other services that you do but this is a new realm in, in in in the Sigfox network and I think it's absolutely brilliant. Thank you for joining us in the studio and sharing it with us. Uh, Gregory Root is the Chief Executive Officer at Sigfox South Africa, an exciting new innovation and uh, my mind is already buzzing with all of these innovations and use case applications that you can use in the real world. So thank you for your time Gregory.