Ericsson connects Maersk’s vessel fleet at sea with IoT

The world’s largest shipping container firm, Maersk Line, has brought two thirds of its vessels online in a partnership with Ericsson.

It took the Swedish networking giant four years to bring the fleet online. Ericsson built a floating DSM network that can track individual cargo loads and provide real-time information back to Maersk Line customers.

“Ericsson managed to transform the capabilities from a shore-based DSM network provider into what we needed—and that was the world’s largest floating DSM network,” Niels Bruus, head of fleet management at Maersk Line said.

Bruus sees this as the start of a long partnership with Ericsson, as the two companies attempt to bring the shipping industry from “the stone ages” by using IoT tech already implemented on land.

Ericsson claims that 90 percent of the world’s cargo is delivered by sea, but most of the cargo is not easily trackable and customers are unable to find information on the temperature and stability of the container.

With Ericsson’s Maritime ICT Cloud platform, all that will change. Maersk Line customers will have better oversight of their container.

A connected vessel fleet may reduce time spent preparing a delivery, since routes can be pre-mapped by a software program ahead of time. Ericsson believes we could see a reduction in fuel usage, alongside more productivity from the vessels.

“One of the things the solution has enabled for Maersk Line is for us to monitor the fleet live as the vessels are conducting the voyage,” Bruus said. “So that means every time there is an incident that is less than optimal for the most optimal production of the voyage, we can interfere immediately and be proactive and change the behavior as it happens.”

In a recent report from the United Nations ITU, it said that Scandinavian countries are surging ahead of the rest of the world in IoT deployment. This is another one of those occasions, with a Danish and Swedish company collaborating to build the first IoT network for the sea1.

Is Stockholm the world’s smartest city?

Ericsson, a world leader in communications technology and services, recently released a report naming Stockholm as the highest-ranking city in the Networked Society City Index for 2016.

The index studies the performance of 41 cities all around the globe, focusing on two perspectives: ICT Maturity, which studies ICT infrastructure, affordability and usage, and Sustainable Urban Development, which is based on social, economic and environmental sustainability.

Next in line after Stockholm are London, Copenhagen, Singapore and Paris. However, London ranks at the top in the ICT part of the index, beating Stockholm, which drops to second in that area, before Singapore.

The index notes some major improvements for Barcelona, Istanbul and Jakarta, while Hong Kong, Moscow and Dubai have all been dropped in their rankings.

In general, the report notes that cities with low ICT maturity seem to develop faster than cities with higher ICT maturity, indicating an overall catch-up effect.

From the report, it looks as though ICT is not only vital to socioeconomic improvement, but can also help remove this progress from an increased environmental footprint, in favor of more sustainable development.

Is Stockholm the future of sustainable smart cities?

With the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, smart city planning will be vital. For example, cities will be instrumental for the improvement of poverty reduction, climate action, better health and education, as well as advanced social and financial inclusion.

Erik Kruse, head of Ericsson’s Networked Society Lab, states, “UN-Habitat estimates that 70 percent of the world’s population will reside in urban areas by 2050. Many smart city initiatives to date have mainly used ICT to optimize existing systems and behaviors, for example, intelligent transport.”

“Instead, cities need to rethink existing structures to fully grasp the potential of ICT to make sure that “smart” is in fact sustainable. The future Networked Society city is characterized by resiliency, collaboration, participation and mobility, which are essential for ensuring our cities are attractive, sustainable and vibrant places.”

For smart cities to continue to improve and become more sustainable, a number of important steps need to occur. These include, making ICT a basic infrastructure in investment plans, creating regulatory environments that encourage the adoption of ICT, a holistic approach to integrating ICT across various sector planning that includes transport, energy and public safety, and more collaboration between cities.

IoT revenues up 15%; cloud computing a big driver

A new report shows healthy revenues for 21 benchmarked Internet of Things (IoT) companies in the last quarter of 2015, with revenue growing by almost 15% to levels approaching $7 billion. Cloud computing and IT infrastructure are especially potent drivers of IoT revenues, as vendors help companies cope with ever increasing rivers of data.

In a press release Technology Business Research (TBR) reported that commercial IoT opportunities drove year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter by 14.8% among the 21 companies it tracks in its regular Commercial IoT Benchmark report. Total revenues for the quarter were $6.7 billion among benchmarked vendors that include Verizon, Microsoft, Intel, Google, Amazon, Siemens, Cisco, Ericsson and Oracle.

See also: Hackers drive huge growth in IoT security market

“Effectively, every type of IT and operational technology (OT) vendor will have a stake in the growing commercial IoT market, as IoT solutions will drive increased use of diverse IT and OT products and services,” said Dan Callahan, a TBR analyst specializing in devices and IoT.

TBR says revenue growth is being driven by a rise in go-to-market refreshes by top vendors who are striving to become known as early leaders in the commercial IoT space.

“In addition to building interest in established IT products, commercial IoT will create growth in specialized business consulting, hardware, network, development, management and security components,” said Callahan. “IT and OT vendors that are quick to capture IoT opportunities within their current customer base, and attract new ones through developer programs and investing in growing mindshare, will enjoy additional, immediate, revenue opportunities.”

Revenues driven by explosive growth in data management needs

TBR’s report showed vendors are looking to become early IoT leaders in order to drive profits in this emerging industry. Vendors who take an early IoT leadership position are benefiting because there is less competition, customers have limited outsourcing options due to early IoT’s security challenges, and clients require custom solutions due to the lack of technology standards.

Cloud computing services posted the highest year-over-year revenue growth rate of 79% to record $604 million in the quarter. This growth is being propelled by the vastly increasing need being created for platforms to process and store data.

TSR also noted strong growth in IT services and ICT infrastructure, which charted a 51.4% growth rate in revenue for the quarter. This subsector is benefiting from the increasing capacity requirements created by the huge streams of IoT data that is being generated, as more companies struggle to tame the growing flood of information into actionable insights.