IoT Alliance Australia Aim to Harness the Power of the Internet of Things

Sydney, 19 July 2016 – The Internet of Things Alliance Australia (IoTAA) - a strong coalition of industry and Government stakeholders designed to seize for Australia the opportunities presented by IoT – has been launched as an independent not-for-profit entity.

The IoTAA grew out of an IoT Think Tank created by Communications Alliance in early 2015, which aimed to shape the regulatory and collaborative framework to garner IoT-related benefits for Australian industry and the wider economy.

The IoTAA was formally launched by Federal Shadow Minister for Communications, Jason Clare, at an industry function in Sydney tonight.

More than 200 individual experts and more than 100 organisations - including leading technology companies, regulators, Government entities, industry groups (representing more than 60,000 Australian businesses) and academic institutions – have been drawn to participate in the work of IoTAA.

Six work streams are making progress on a range of fronts, including spectrum availability and a new way to manage it, network resilience, industry verticals, data sharing and privacy, and how to foster IoT start-ups. 

The IoTAA will be initially hosted and supported administratively by the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) Broadway Campus in Sydney.

IoT gathers real-world information and converts it to digital form. Complemented by the looming power of 5G technology, IoT seems certain to transform sectors and economies by revolutionising industry methods and supply chains, unleashing analytical power undreamt of until now, and enhancing our ability to predict and control the future.

Mr Clare commented that IoT harbours both massive opportunities and significant risks.

"If we don't get our skates on we will be left behind.  A lot of countries are already ahead of us when it comes to IoT.  If we don't turn this around we will miss out on a lot of new jobs, more investment and new businesses," Mr Clare said.

Already more than 14 billion devices are connected to the internet world wide and the trend line suggests a move to about 26 billion installed units by 2020 and – some forecast – 1 trillion by 2035.

Earlier this month SK Telecom in South Korea launched a suite of Internet of Things offerings, based on the open-source LPWAN LoRa technology, that are priced at one-tenth the cost of its LTE-based IoT services.

SKT completed the LoRaWAN infrastructure rollout at the end of June – six months ahead of schedule – and now covers 99% of the country’s population with the service.

In Australia these types of network are also being developed. The University of Wollongong Innovation Campus and Australian solution provider Meshed have launched a publicly accessible LoRaWAN network in Wollongong and are soon to launch a similar network in Sydney.

Please see below a list of the IoTAA Executive Council members, as well as some examples of the benefits of IoT deployment. 

Media Contact: John Stanton, 0434 318 777

• IoTAA Executive Council:
• Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
• Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN)
• Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)
• Australian Industry Group (AIG)
• Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA)
• Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA)
• Business Council of Australia (BCA)
• Communications Alliance
• Creator Tech
• CSIRO
• Department of Communications and the Arts (DoCA)
• Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C)
• Ericsson
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise
• Huawei
• IBM
• Intel
• Internet Australia
• Knowledge Economy Institute (KEi)
• KPMG
• nbn
• Nokia
• Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)/Australian Privacy Commissioner
• Optus
• Telstra

EXAMPLES OF BENEFITS OF IoT DEPLOYMENT

Smart Water Management

Leaky pipes are a huge cost and waste of valuable water resources. In Australia, Townsville has implemented a smart water pilot that is breaking new ground in the way data is collected and analysed in near real-time. At its core, it will help identify and enable ways for the people of Townsville to drive water conservation by empowering residents with smart technology to assist with positive behavioural change.  By using smart sensor networks Townsville City Council is able to deliver near real-time information about daily water usage from digital water meters to the Council and residents via a web portal, and reduce overall consumption as well as offset future infrastructure investment. The results of the pilot showed:

• 50% of consumers changed their behavior after seeing both timely data and insight from their pattern of use on the portal.
• 98% faster notification time on water leaks, from three months to day, potentially saving millions of litres of water, associated treatment and delivery costs, reduction in bill shocks and complaints to the call center.
• 10% reduction achieved in overall average household water consumption by residents accessing the portal.                     

(http://www-03.ibm.com/press/au/en/pressrelease/40800.wss)

Smart Buildings

Buildings account for around 75% of total electricity usage globally and an estimated one third of that energy is wasted. When infrastructure becomes smart – with networked sensors –the efficiency of a building can be greatly improved. Bueno Systems in Australia has deployed analytics on the BMS and utility meters at a major shopping centre in Victoria. The center is ~88,000m2 with 4 stages of development. The building has a NABERS Energy rating of 3.0 Stars, however the site has always been considered anecdotally to be one of the poorer performing sites. The pilot began in September 2013 and over the first twelve months of operation the energy consumption of the site has reduced by 356,000 kWh of electricity and 70 GJ of gas with an equivalent cost saving of $54,000. These energy savings have been delivered despite the cooling load being 25% higher in the year to date.

(http://www.buenosystems.com.au/publications/)

Autonomous Vehicles

The potential of autonomous vehicles to boost the Australian economy and reimagine mobility is unmatched. McKinsey assessments suggest that fully autonomous vehicles could eliminate 90 per cent of motor vehicle accidents, with partially autonomous vehicles eliminating around 40 per cent of accidents. In the NSW context, the hypothetical elimination of 90 per cent of accidents that occurred between 2008 and 2013 on regional local roads is equivalent to around 1,330 fewer fatalities and 90,300 fewer injuries over a six year period. In addition, the total economic cost of fatalities and injuries on local roads over the same period would have reduced by $13.5 billion19. The Cooperative Intelligent Transport System Initiative (CITI) pilot has constructed a 42 km connected freight corridor test facility in the Illawarra Region of NSW south of Sydney and is one of the first large scale test facility dedicated to Heavy Vehicles in the world. In 2015, The South Australian Government introduced laws allowing the on-road testing of autonomous vehicles, positioning the state to be at forefront of the future Australian autonomous vehicle industry, with the expectation that driverless cars will be made possible by about 2025.  The trial is a partnership by the Australian Driverless Vehicle Initiative with Volvo and Codha wireless who have undertaken Australia’s first on-road demonstration of an autonomous vehicle.