Our focus is to provide you with a sustainable and resilient smart-city-solution. Our mesh network is an integral part of that promise.
Through our technology partner, Itron, we provide one of the most advanced and reliable IoT networks in the world. This open standards-based, trusted platform achieves a staggering >99.5% reliability and has been proven at scale, securely connecting nearly 200 million critical devices in some of the toughest climates and most diverse topographies on five continents.
Mesh enables coverage with considerably less infrastructure than popular star topology networks while providing a flexible foundation to support future uses cases. Unlike star networks, which require direct connections to each endpoint device, mesh endpoints can communicate with each other. With this unique capability, mesh networks are able to deliver unmatched performance in the most challenging operating environments, including dense urban and remote topographies.
Here’s how:
Our connectivity platform combines long range radios – which offer extremely efficient long range communication – with mesh networking technology – where every device acts as a repeater for every other device.
This means devices can communicate directly with access points over very long distances, and allow messages to ‘hop’ through 15 devices before reaching the Access Point. This ability to see round corners allows the network to get near to 100% coverage in every part of the city, including the hard to reach locations where many sensors might be placed.
While 15 hops is supported we typically design networks to average just 4 ‘hops’ between the sensor and the access point, to ensure there is a huge amount of path redundancy in the event of individual device failure, or localised power outages.
In other words, even if you have multiple nodes knocked out by a power outage, the data will automatically zig-zag between the remaining nodes and still make it through to the access point (assuming the shortest route is less than 15 ‘hops’). This enables us to exceed 99.5% reliability in terms of communication because of this extensive self-healing capability. Equally, every node will register with two Access Points. If one fails, the nodes will instantly start using the second.
As new devices are added, the mesh forms new connections, becoming stronger and more resilient with each new connection.
All of this happens automatically without user intervention and ensures that our network is part of a truly flexible, robust and sustainable solution.