French IoT firm Kinéis announced an IoT partnership with Bouygues Telecom and plans to start manufacturing 25 satellites as a part of its official launch of its industrial program.  Kinéis is a spin-off of the CLS aerospace group and traces its roots to the CLS/CNES ARGOS one-way system built in the 1980s to track objects on the high seas.

One change to the architecture is the additional of 5 satellites to its planned constellation.  When the project was announced in September 2018, Kinéis said it would build 20 nanosatellites and be support two-way communications.  Each Angel satellite in the network is expected to weight around 25 kilograms, be around 16U in size, and operate for four or more years in low Earth orbit.

Expected launch of the constellation is expected to take place in 2022, but the Kinéis claim it is the “future owner and operator of the first European constellation of nanosatellites dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT)” is likely to be challenged by Astrocast (Luxembourg) and Hiber (Netherlands), both who have launched pathfinder satellites and in the process of putting up constellations.

Bouygues Telecom is a French telecommunications provider with a portfolio of services including wireless, fiber, and its IoT subsidiary, Objenious.  The Objenious network within France uses the LoRaWAN standard, covering 95 percent of the country.  Exactly how Kinéis will be integrated with Objenious and other existing IoT networks remains to be discussed.