RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – TIM is one of the mobile operators in Brazil betting more intensely on the Internet of Things (IoT).
It has a strong involvement with the agribusiness sector, providing solutions through 4G networks, which will later be strengthened with 5G networks.
In parallel, it has just closed a partnership with Microsoft to incorporate Azure IoT into its proposal in this segment and help companies move forward in the digital transformation.
In a new chapter of how digital companies are increasingly turning to the telco world, the thing is not only cloud but to mount other platforms, such as IoT, on that infrastructure.
Microsoft is moving in this direction. TIM takes advantage of this determination and uses it as a function of its business.
The telecommunications operator is looking for ways to seal alliances with partners that can complement and enrich its offer of connectivity services for companies.
Moving forward with IoT is to translate new business cases with concrete facts, which also allows finding new ways to face 5G.
TIM reported its mobile coverage reaches more than 4,800 cities in Brazil with 4G, while more than 4,100 cities are reached with Narrow Band in IoT (NB-IoT) technologies.
Within Brazil, there are more than 7 million connected hectares – over 72 million cultivated hectares, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), which allows reaching about 900,000 people, in addition to 25,000 kilometers of roads and highways.
The availability of NB-IoT in the 700 MHz band expands traditional coverage with sustainable principles, i.e., with low battery consumption, which will enable it to reach 4,400 cities.
This 10% of connected cultivated hectares shows the business potential that exists in the agribusiness sector in this country.
A few days ago, the operator had announced the case of Citrosuco, one of the largest orange juice producers in Brazil, whose fields and industrial plants are connected through the 4G TIM service in the field, with which it is accompanying it in its digital transformation process, which consists of modernizing the monitoring systems of vehicles, machines, and agricultural equipment to improve productivity.
The alliance includes a broad portfolio of solutions that help at different levels, from simplifying integrations to the possibility of collecting, storing, and processing data from sensors and smart devices hosted in a cloud service.
From the availability of 5G that, due to issues linked to the cleaning of the 3.5 GHz band, was moved from July to the end of September, TIM pointed out that it will be possible to take advantage of high speeds with very low latencies for information processing.
From this process, the operator’s goal is to add even more intelligence to the data collected and work with information in real-time, which helps in the agility of decision-making.
For TIM, the partnership with Microsoft means bringing IoT applications developed by the company to be enabled by 4G and 5G networks.
“The partnership with Microsoft will bring to the market an ecosystem of partners and solutions that exist today, both in TIM and Microsoft, and will enable end-to-end solutions, from connectivity to the platform that enables business applications. We want to be part of the ecosystem and are investing to become the preferred IoT partner for companies across the country,” said Paulo Humberto Gouvêa, director of corporate solutions at TIM Brazil.