Sigfox and WND, the company launched to extend the deployment of its proprietary Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) technology for the Internet of Things (IoT) in Latin America, are teaming up with IotNet Mexico.

The aim is to bring coverage to Mexico City, which Sigfox claims is one of the world’s largest markets for smart city applications.

IotNet will be the exclusive Sigfox network operator in the country, focusing initially on applications for utilities such as remote metering for water, gas and residential electricity.

Sigfox expects city-wide coverage by the end of 2016 and nationwide service availability shortly thereafter.

“As part of a group that is providing utility services to major Mexican companies and is deploying the first metering-as-a-service in the country, we made an extensive comparison of the available LPWA and cellular technologies and concluded Sigfox was superior in simplicity, choice of hardware vendors and ecosystem support,” said Daniel Guevara, CEO of IotNet Mexico.

“But more than that, we chose them for their disruptive business model and their versatile global ecosystem that helps SNOs and their customers quickly implement the IoT,” he added.

Sigfox’s Latin American deployment started in Brazil in April. After extending to Mexico, Sigfox believes it will be able to address 53 per cent of Latin American territory and 56 percent of its population.

Sigfox said it is deploying its network in countries totaling one billion people, with one third of this population under effective coverage.

In 2016, the firm plans to be present in more than 30 countries.

Back in April, it partnered with Omantel, the largest operator in Oman, to provide IoT coverage to 85 per cent of the population within 18 months.

Sigfox is competing against other proprietary (non-cellular) LPWA technologies such as LoRA and Ingenu, all of which use unlicensed spectrum. Meanwhile the traditional mobile camp is hoping the newly ratified NB-IoT standard will provide serious competition from next year.