5 Characteristics of Leading Industrial IoT Connectivity Solution Providers (Part 4)

Part 4: Locally supported field operations

By Stephane Dejean – Kerlink CMO

Many companies emphasize their ongoing, on-the-ground support for customers. But there are broad differences in the delivery of this critical aspect of customer relations before, during and after major projects are completed. Kerlink has invested heavily in personnel, quality, systems and training to ensure its customers are supported throughout their IoT journeys. Let’s consider the company’s prestaging program and the many field environments in which Kerlink supports its customers.

The series:

1. Characteristic 1: Exceptional hardware and software product design – Jan. 30
2. Characteristic 2: Supported and verified industrial production processes – Feb. 6
3.  Characteristic 3: Certified overall quality management – Feb.13
4. Characteristic 4: Locally supported field operations – Feb. 20
5. Characteristic 5: Ongoing excellent customer satisfaction – Feb. 25

Prestaging

Prestaging is Kerlink’s process of configuring technology prior to shipping it to customers. For example, before we ship an IoT connectivity solution, we prestage each gateway with requested, customer-specific parameters. This process helps simplify equipment provisioning and accelerate deployment, while enhancing the overall customer experience. Kerlink’s wealth of knowledge about carrier-grade gateway configuration and deployments helps it prestage industrial hardware for the most demanding environments and ensure the company’s solutions will seamlessly operate with other solutions and connectivity building blocks on the market. These steps deliver a turnkey seamless IoT connectivity experience.

Field environments

Kerlink’s IoT solutions are well suited for extremely varied environments and benefit from multiple track records that testify to the robustness and performance of its products. These include harsh-remote and dense-ur­ban environments, industrial and carrier environments, unique radio environments, and settings where either the customer or a supplier is assuming the lead role during deployment.

Specifically, Kerlink has successfully completed deployments in a wide range of geographies and climatic conditions, including harsh winter environments in Canada and Russia, tropical and remote environments in Asia, India and Africa, and urban environments in Europe and Argentina. Other examples of Kerlink solutions on the job:

• They are used by leading mobile network operators (MNOs) that have demanding technology performance-and-security requirements including proof of trust. These MNOs include Tata Communications, Orange, KPN, Proximus, Spark New Zealand, and YEAP!, among others.
• They are deployed in various technical architecture and radio environments, including dense colocation, single-site deployments and even solar-powered-site deployments where energy efficiency is paramount.

Wirnet Station LoRaWAN gateway installed in a wind turbine to power the remote monitoring of lightning strikes – Source Raycap – 2017

Kerlink and its partners also provide professional services and instructional guidelines for onsite deployments, including:

• Hardware installation guidelines, installation best-practices and configuration recommendations for optimal performance and mitigation of potential risks of interference.
• Network planning and provisioning services for appropri­ate network design, relevant site choice, optimal cover­age provisioning and fine-tuning of radio performance.
• Specialized, large-scale field support based on many successful deployments that take into account customers’ specific use cases and dedicated operations criteria.

Installation guidelines and best-practices have been jointly validated with network operators and are easily reusable by industrial customers, for both public and private IoT networks.

Kerlink’s customer satisfaction

The Internet of Things (IoT) will revolutionize the way cities, utilities, public-service agencies and enterprises operate and conduct many aspects of their activities, including streamlining critical business processes and launching new connected services for their citizens, users and customers.

Kerlink is helping to power that revolution. Its mastery of the entire IoT connectivity-hardware and software value chain, its deep expertise in designing and producing hardware and software, and its ability to adapt to customers’ needs have established Kerlink as a global leader in designing and deploying public & private IoT networks. But you don’t have to only take our word for it.

The fifth characteristic of leading Industrial IoT Connectivity Solution Providers is ongoing excellent customer satisfaction. In the final article in this series, available beginning on Feb. 25, you will hear directly from some of our customers.

See you then for the last chapter!