Spark and NNNCo agree to trans-Tasman IoT network sharing

Spark New Zealand has entered a trans-Tasman agreement with Australia's longest-running LoRaWAN network operator, The National Narrowband Network Co (NNNCo).

The agreement is the first of its kind in the region and will enable mutual access across the respective LoRaWAN IoT (Long-Range Wide Area Internet of Things) networks; meaning businesses on both sides of the Tasman can more easily implement cost-effective smart technology solutions without needing to set up operations in the other country.

Spark IoT lead Tony Agar says, "As the economy continues to be shaped by COVID-19, we could expect to see more partnerships like this; where carriers and partners work together to enable the deployment and scaling of IoT solutions across markets.

"If we have a customer who wants to deliver services in Australia, they can now do so from the comfort of their offices in Aotearoa, without the need to set up operations across the Tasman. It also means that they can keep visibility and monitor their machinery, assets or infrastructure using their already well-established dashboards and diagnostic tools.

As an example, the new wholesale agreement means Spark can help Parkable, Australasia's fastest-growing parking app, to expand their business in Australia.

Parkable co-founder and CEO Toby Littin says, "Due to customer demand we want to push harder into the Australian market so this agreement will allow us to scale our Parkable offering across the Tasman and simplify our back-end processes. Using the one platform and having a single place to view and analyse data will mean our customers will get even better parking experiences in the future.

"It's exciting to know that we now have access to growing network coverage in Sydney, Canberra, Gold Coast, Tasmania, Melbourne and regional areas in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. Those markets have just been unlocked for us, so we are eager to grow and scale.

The wholesale arrangement has been enabled with the integration of NNNCo's enterprise data platform N2N-DL into Spark NZ's network core.

Data from devices will feed into N2N-DL giving Spark NZ customers access to data on a single platform from devices enrolled in either country.

"We're seeing increasing demand from customers requiring cross-Tasman roaming capabilities as they deploy IoT devices and applications beyond Australia," NNNCo CEO Rob Zagarella says.

"We're very happy to now be able to provide a seamless and consistent service with N2N-DL as a customer's single source of aggregation for IoT devices in either country and on either network.