The Perfect IoT Deployment

A typical IoT delivery and deployment is a mix between IT hardware solutions and Telco services like connectivity and additional services. It can be a bit delicate to take the right steps towards success and launch a fully functional and secure IoT solution.  

In my last blog post, “How to Buy IoT” you can find a lot of tips to keep in mind when you plan for the perfect IoT deployment. In this post, I will outline out some ideas for you to use, learn from, or just get inspired. 

Background about the example is as follows: 

A leading car brand with numerous resellers present in Sweden will offer local EV charging in 100+ locations. The resellers will pay for the service installed by the car brand vendor and cannot open up the local network for connectivity purposes due to security reasons. The car vendor has minimal resources to handle a project like this, which is why installation, projecting, and fulfillment of the project is done by a third-party Facility Management expert. The car vendor is an existing customer to Tele2 today. How can this be done most effectively?  

• 100 different geographical locations or cities 
• EV Charging stations, all charging hardware in place and 24/7 functionality needed 
• Short project time, meaning should be up and running yesterday 
• Ordering company is a global leading car vendor to offer EV charging to local car dealers
• The installer is a leading company in PropTech (Property Technology) and facility management covering the Nordics  
• Tele2 IoT is the connectivity provider and the orchestrator 

This image illustrates the complexity in a secure deployment and some of the challenges you might face: 

The Challenge 

• The ordering company is eager to get the charging stations up and running asap and is not expert in connectivity, IT security, or this type of deployment en masse  
• The installer is a generalist in IT and Telco, not IoT experts, but is located close to all local car dealers involved in the roll-out, meaning fast installation can be offered. 

The winning formula  

In this specific case an IoT distributor with pre-config competence and an IoT expert is contacted and will act as the fulfillment center and send fully configured plug and play boxes to all locations. Full documentation is done to map hardware plus location to trace future invoicing.  

• This will minimize installation time and raise the overall quality and security since no config is done locally 
• The ordering company will still only talk to the installer that is fulfilling the SLA (Service Level Agreement) in the contract 
• The installer is legally using Tele2 IoT and the IoT distributor as subcontractors. 

Summary

When you are under time pressure on a project people tend to get more pragmatic and this is a fitting example. Will this cost more? Yes, initial costs are higher, but when attacking a challenge in this way you also re-arranging where the issues and cost will pop-up. Since everything is tested and configured, the local installer will only add the solution to the power outlet. Everything is already tested and configured to be operational. And the config is done in a controlled environment, which will minimize local costly on-site repairs and raise the level of traceability for the future. 

If you have any comments or would like to discuss your IoT deployment, please feel free to get in touch.  

Anders Nilsson, Tele2 IoT