Dutch startup Hiber announced it is starting commercial trials around the globe for its satellite IoT service, the latest in a slew of announcements in the sector. Expect more announcements startups as new companies jockey to establish mindshare and find new customers.
“We are extremely proud to announce that after only 3 years of hard work, Hiberband is the first network of its kind to become operational on a global scale,” Laurens Groenendijk, Hiber co-founder Hiber said. “We have the team, partners, technology and regulatory building blocks in place to shortly be the industry leader. With full freedom to operate everywhere in the world, we are looking forward to supporting our customers wherever they need to be.”
Hiber’s press release highlights a cost of less than a dollar per month per device to reliability transmit text message size data from anywhere in the world. It also states Hiber has “over 70 customers” signed up already, with early adopters in agriculture, environment, government, mining and transportation & logistics. Initial use cases include beehive monitoring, soil moisture monitoring, and crop conditions.
Users will have two options for picking up data via Hiber. Hiberband Direct uses a satellite modem and antenna to directly talk to satellites in orbit (DTO) while the Hiberband Via solution uses a gateway capable of speaking WiFi, Bluetooth and LoRa protocols.
Hiber has two satellites in orbit today, launched in November and December 2018. Two more satellites are expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2020 on an Indian rideshare mission.
Earlier this month, Astrocast and Kepler Communications announced availability for IoT ground hardware so developers could start figuring out how to connect devices to their respective satellites and cloud networks. Last month EchoStar purchased a bankrupt Helios Wire and Eutelsat disclosed its plans to build a constellation of small satellites dedicated to IoT services.
