Legba, which provides infrastructure for mobile operators, says its YateBTS facilitates the delivery of Internet of Things (IoT) applications to farms, increasing farming efficiency and productivity.
YateBTS is a software implementation of GSM/GPRS radio access networks, offering scalable voice and data solutions to rural communities in remote locations. YateBTS runs on SatSite, a 2.5G/4G base station designed for areas with limited infrastructure.
Using YateBTS SatSite, mobile operators can reduce network installation and maintenance costs, by operating the base station using solar or wind energy, the company says. SatSite’s low-power consumption of as little as 45W makes it optimal to run in areas where grid power is not available.
The company says isolated rural communities can leverage the advantages of IoT applications to develop new economic systems by optimizing processes such as soil and weather monitoring, water management, or herd tracking.
The growth of IoT applications globally challenges operators that need to serve growing groups of customers in rural areas. Presently, the requirements of IoT applications to serve rural areas with voice and data services can best be met using GPRS. For operators and communities alike, GPRS technology makes most sense for operators to enter new markets, and for rural groups to increase farming efficiency.
The company says YateBTS 5.0 brings two major improvements to GPRS:
- Better GPRS performance for timing advance and power control, to allow optimal provisioning for remote IoT connected devices.
- Local IP allocation to bring IoT to areas served only by satellite. With local IP assignment, data can be routed more efficiently for non-mobile devices.