American Tower expands Brazilian IoT network to 288 cities

Telecom infra group American Tower is expanding the availability of its LoRa (long-range) IoT network in Brazil to new regions, having recently reached 288 cities with the technology through its tower footprint.

“Potentially, all of our towers have the possibility of having a LoRa network enabled. There just needs to be demand. We're growing, but the pace depends heavily on demand from clients and projects,” American Tower’s head of new business, Janilson Bezerra, told BNamericas.

American Tower leads the Brazilian tower market with roughly 50% of all wireless towers and ended June with 22,803 sites around the country.

LoRa is a cellular IoT technology that competes with 3GPP-standardized mobile networks such as 3G, 4G or 5G.

A key feature of LoRa is its low power consumption, which means that devices can remain in operation for long periods without having to be charged, which is why the technology is considered key for IoT.

It is a low-power, wide area (LPWA) networking protocol, designed to wirelessly connect battery operated 'things' to the internet in regional, national or global networks.

American Tower's technological partner for the Lora IoT network is Dutch firm Everynet, with whom the company has been working in Brazil since 2017. Everynet builds and maintains carrier-grade IoT networks on top of ATC's structures.

Projects have advanced and diversified, but Bezerra believes that there is still a lack of specialized integrators for IoT projects for specific industry verticals in order to leverage the ecosystem and scale up deployments.

Everynet's technology using American Tower infra is implemented in Brazilian companies via integrators, including NLT and Algar, among others.

Among the new pilots in which ATC and Everynet are currently involved in Brazil are smart meters for water utilities Sabesp and Iguá.