MTN has selected Cisco’s Jasper Control Center platform as a launchpad for enterprise customers’ ‘internet of things’ (IoT) services on its mobile network in South Africa. MTN said interest in new IoT services was strongest in the connected car, vehicle tracking, building security and automation, and logistics industries.
MTN is the first mobile operator in South Africa to deploy Control Center, designed to help enterprises launch, manage and monetise new IoT products and services. Cisco said MTN will be to deliver connected services to enterprises more securely and cost-effectively, enabling them to scale globally as needed.
Mariana Kruger, general manager for ICT solutions at MTN, said: “Initial customer adoption has indicated strong demand for Control Center across all industries, with particular interest from the connected car, vehicle tracking, building security and automation, and logistics industries.”
Kalle Ward, managing director for Cisco’s IoT division in the region, said: Every business can benefit from delivering connected services that enhance their customers’ experiences, help reduce operational cost, and introduce new sources of revenue.”
Cisco acquired Jasper in 2016 as a crucial function in its expanding IoT portfolio. Cisco launched the Jasper Control Centre IoT platform in April 2017 in Canada, in partnership with local telecommunications company Telus. Cisco has also taken its IoT platform to Finnish operator DNA and to grid operator Enexis Netbehher, based in the Netherlands.
The business appears to have found its rhythm in the enterprise IoT space. Its Kinetic system, in particular, works as a ‘platform of platforms’ for sundry vertical markets, which allows any variety of data inputs, normalises their flow, and renders their information in a common management plane.
Cisco is working with IBM Watson for the Port of Rotterdam, and on the CityVerve project in Manchester in the UK.
“It is different from other platforms because it really moves and normalises the data – and it’s open, so it can feed into anybody else. Others are really more focused on getting the data into their own stack. We don’t really care what the protocol is; we’ll normalise it across anything,” Bryan Tantzen, senior director at Cisco Systems, recently told Enterprise IoT Insights.
