Mike Mulica, the new CEO of Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) specialist and LoRa supporter Actility, played down the impact of rival IoT technologies emerging on the market, insisting that competition is good for the ecosystem and will open up new opportunities for the French company – particularly around NB-IoT.

Speaking to Mobile World Live just over a week after joining the company, Mulica said the emergence of companies like Sigfox and other rival players in developing IoT network solutions will be a positive, both in terms of funding and raising awareness of LPWA’s future impact.

Photo Mike Mulica (4) rs

Mulica said Actility, which is a co-founder of the LoRA Alliance and backs the fast-growing LoRAWan standard, does however differ from a rival like Sigfox in the fact that it backs more of an open network, “which makes us a bit more Android”, he claims, while Sigfox is a vertically integrated company, “which makes them a bit more like Apple”.

“In any case, it’s always good to have someone that you can compare yourself against. This is helping us, as we are well funded and it’s a big world,” he said. “There are even certain aspects of some of the closed technologies that we like, so our strategy from a technology perspective is to be all inclusive.”

NB-IoT support
To that end, Mulica said its open approach also extends to the NarrowBand IoT standard from 3GPP, which Actility plans to embrace when it is unveiled later this year (the standard is due to be officially ratified later this week).

“We will deliver a NB-IoT capable product as soon as standards are ratified. We are excited about this aspect of our product.”

In the interview, which is part of our CEO Spotlight series, Mulica also opened up on his future vision for the company, and how he sees the ecosystem for IoT networks evolving. Click here to read the full interview.