New public IoT network for Townsville

A new, publicly accessible Internet of Things (IoT) network has been implemented in Townsville, North Queensland. It is the result of a partnership between Townsville City Council and Campbell Scientific Australia (CSA). 

The new network aims to bring low-power, long-range, area-wide IoT access to the city for the benefit of its citizens and is already helping the community to engage.

Consisting of several gateways with coverage of approximately 1000 km², the network is being used by local schoolchildren in collaboration with scientists from James Cook University to monitor environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity and water quality around the city on a dense scale at very low cost.

The network uses the open-standard LoRaWAN protocol and Campbell Scientific’s Altoview IoT platform, enabling smart devices, applications and connected systems to communicate with each other without the need for human intervention.

Steve Bailey, managing director of CSA, said, “The IoT will have a tremendous impact on our lives. Widescale sensing devices can provide a wealth of information that will lead to tremendous improvements to health, agriculture, commerce, utilities and industry, to name just a few.”

CSA says that many industries are on the cusp of a technological revolution thanks to emerging Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) technologies. In the coming years, many traditionally labour-intensive tasks, which can be time-consuming and prone to user errors, will become fully automated. Over time this will have a positive impact on the operational efficiency of organisations, leading to increased revenue, improved quality and enhanced customer satisfaction.

City-wide trials of the first in a new range of Altoview IoT sensors are due to start in February 2017 and will last for several months. In addition, development of an IoT sensor for flood warning applications is in the works.