Chinese technology group outlines African IoT strategy

30th September 2016 By: David Oliveira - Creamer Media Staff Writer

The Asia-Pacific and African markets have been instrumental to the success of global information and communication technology (ICT) solutions provider Huawei.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Huawei Connect 2016 conference, which took place in Shanghai earlier this month, Huawei product marketing and management director Ajay Gupta told Engineering News that South Africa, in particular, has been critical to the company’s success and growth in Africa.

Huawei enterprise network product and solutions VP and CTO Wu Chou noted that the company had partnered with most of the telecommunications service providers, providing infrastructure solutions and technical expertise.

Gupta highlighted that Huawei’s strategy for the South African market is to promote its enterprise products and services, which include applications for the Internet of Things (IoT).

There had been estimations that the value of the global IoT market was as high as $15-trillion, he said, adding that there had not been any market leaders in the field, which created the opportunity for Huawei to take up the top position in IoT.

The company’s IoT strategy for South Africa primarily focuses on middleware, referring to software that mediates between an application program and a network, such as Huawei’s LiteOS, which integrates IoT operating systems and middleware.

The LiteOS is approved by telecommunications standards development organisation the Third Generation Partnership Project, commonly known as 3GPP, standards for narrowband IoT, which uses narrowband radio technology specifically designed for IoT applications.

Huawei’s LiteOS was launched last year.

Gupta explained that Huawei aimed to deploy IoT-related middleware solutions in its switching and routing applications, which makes “switching agile, allowing for more programmable networks and the implementation of software-defined networking (SDN) architecture”.

He noted that Huawei’s Campus Cloud solution, launched at Huawei Connect 2016, highlighted the company’s IoT strategy, as it used wireless data transmission, SDN architecture and automation to provide an enterprise cloud solution to improve operational efficiencies.

Gupta pointed out the importance of South Africa as a market for Huawei, owing to its level of ICT infrastructure and IoT competency, particularly regarding smart cities.

Smart cities leverage ICT infrastructure and systems to efficiently manage a city’s assets such as electricity, water supply and road networks.