Comcast announces 5 new machineQ clients

A day after Cox Communications announced a new IoT services division and its first client, Comcast touted five new enterprise customers for its own IoT network services platform, machineQ.

The clients include Adveez, an IoT hardware solutions provider, which uses machineQ’s LoRaWAN-based service to help customer monitors business’ assets at airports, seaports and in cities.

Other announced clients include wearables manufacturer Carebrand, which provides location-based tracking of dementia patients for caregivers; Neptune, a software and hardware supplier for water utilities; Pansofik, which helps small and medium sized business integrate IoT into their organizations; and pest control solution maker Victor, who will use LoRaWAN-based sensors to build the proverbial better mouse trap. 

“IoT solution providers are seeking secure, reliable and highly scalable network connectivity, device management capabilities, and new IoT microservices, like geo-location, to speed their time-to-market, and our new customers have chosen machineQ because it can be deployed across a wide range of different enterprise use cases,” said Alex Khorram, general manager of machineQ, in a statement. “We want IoT solution providers to know that we can handle their network needs, so they can focus on bringing their innovative solutions to market to the benefit of their end users.”

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“We see our collaboration with machineQ as a key strategic initiative for the Victor brand of pest control products,” said Tom Daly, senior director of strategic technology at Victor parent Woodstream Corporation. “By joining this cutting-edge platform, we’ll be able to leverage our industry-leading portfolio of products to a larger audience and continue pioneering the marketplace with innovative, cost-effective solutions for pest control.”

Comcast first announced machineQ in 2016 as trials in Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago, and in 2017 began rolling out the LoRa-based service to businesses and municipalities in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Miami, Minneapolis, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Seattle and Washington, D.C. 

Earlier this month, the Comcast division unveiled a new website, expansion plans and a far more clearly defined pitch to potential customers. 

MachineQ is now promising customers that it will build out a LoRa-based IoT network in other markets beyond its current 15, and is urging IoT shoppers to “bring us your connectivity needs and we’ll customize a coverage plan for your region and solution.” The company also offers guides and devices for customers wishing to build out a new IoT service—as well as a “conversion guide” that allows customers to switch from an existing IoT service to one that uses LoRa.

Meanwhile, machineQ’s new “Connectivity OnDemand” launches sometime this month and promises to allow customers to “use our e-commerce platform to purchase gateways that are provisioned to our network. Select the gateway type, quantity and shipment location for your specific solution and coverage needs.”