TORONTO – Iristel Inc. is teaming up with Canadian nano-satellite company Kepler Communications to build collaborative M2M services that link tiny satellites with terrestrial wired and wireless networks.
The two companies said Wednesday that M2M connectivity will begin with Iristel's national network and its subsidiary Ice Wireless, a regional mobile operator in Canada's North, and soon add Kepler's nano-satellites where ground infrastructure is not available. The first two Kepler nano-satellites are scheduled for launch in November.
Iristel said that the partnership will offer customers a seamless transition between GSM and satellite networks without the need to obtain additional hardware for their IoT applications. Beyond speed, the LEO (low earth orbit) nano-satellites also significantly reduce latency – or satellite echo – from hundreds of milliseconds to only 45 milliseconds, which Iristel and Ice CEO Samer Bishay calls “a significant benefit for mission-critical M2M applications."
"Customers will be able to use the same smart devices when inside Iristel's coverage region, and then seamlessly transition to a satellite network when working remote," said Bishay, in the news release. "The ability to produce single multi-purpose smart devices gives us better economies of scale and can help reduce the cost of devices, which is a main impediment towards true en masse M2M deployments."
"This partnership means we can begin to deploy pilot services immediately prior to our satellite constellation being in full operation”, added Kepler CEO Mina Mitry. “At the end of the day, how data moves is largely irrelevant to customers, and we very much see satellites as complementary to terrestrial telecom. We're excited to work with another company with the same vision on how the two systems can work together."
In photo: Iristel's Samer Bishay (left) and Kepler’s Jeffrey Osborne (right) hold one of the nano-satellites.
