Telecom operators Orange and KPN in association with IoT connectivity platform supplier Actility, have revealed the first field test of actual roaming between nationwide public IoT networks.

Roaming between countries will enable engineers to connect sensors or trackers that move between countries. The first field test of actual roaming simplifies the implementation of international business applications. Engineers can remove the need to both integrate several IoT platforms and contract with multiple LoRaWAN operators.

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Orange and KPN set up a secure roaming interface between their Actility network server platforms, and have tested Orange devices operating on the KPN network in the Netherlands and KPN devices operating on the Orange France network.

The roaming followed the first version of the LoRaWAN Backend Interfaces specification released by the LoRa Alliance in October.

“This first LoRaWAN compliant roaming communication in the field is a critical milestone to unlock several key segments of the IoT market by removing the barrier of national borders,” says Bertrand Waels, head of Alternative Radio Access at Orange.

Business decision makers in the global telecom industry can achieve more business because roaming simplifies the development of international use cases, such as with a trucking company’s logistics chain or a start-up selling products across Europe.

The most important fact is the possibilities of elimination of the need to develop variants of devices and applications for each IoT network and national markets, optimizing time to market and bringing economies of scale.

“Unlocking international markets is a major driver for our customers. We are pleased with this major step, roaming is key to extending our LoRaWAN based IoT services around the globe,” said Carolien Nijhuis, director IoT at KPN.

Olivier Hersent, CTO of Actility, said the LoRaWAN ecosystem can seamlessly cluster thousands of networks.