Hiber's push for global IoT connectivity

Philip Mason talks to the co-founder of Hiber, Coen Janssen, whose company is using satellite technology to enable IoT connectivity in the remotest areas of the planet

As regular readers of Land Mobile will know, there are an ever-increasing number of use-cases being developed around both so-called ‘smart cities’ and the IoT-related technology that will ultimately enable them.

Having said that, as potentially beneficial as the technology undoubtedly is, there has always been a danger that those benefits will ultimately be determined – at least to a degree – by postcode lottery. Or to put it another way, smart cities are a very fine idea indeed if you live in a city. What if you are in the jungle, sheltering in a tent in the middle of the Sahara, or crossing the ocean?

One company looking to increase the global IoT footprint in more remote areas is Hiber, specifically through the deployment of its ever-expanding constellation of small (or ‘nano’) satellites. These are aimed at providing what its co-founder Coen Janssen refers to as “low power, short data” on a low-cost basis, to help replicate the kind of functionality enabled by the likes of LoRa and Sigfox in the big cities.