Sigfox is a French global network operator founded in 2010 that builds

wireless network A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing c ...

s to connect low-power objects such as

electricity meter North American domestic analog electricity meter. Electricity meter with transparent plastic case (Israel) North American domestic electronic electricity meter An electricity meter, electric meter, electrical meter, energy meter, or kilowa ...

s and

smartwatch A smartwatch is a wearable computer in the form of a watch; modern smartwatches provide a local touchscreen interface for daily use, while an associated smartphone app provides management and telemetry, such as long-term biomonitoring. While ea ...

es, which need to be continuously on and emitting small amounts of data. Sigfox is based in

Labège Labège (; oc, Labeja) is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department in the Occitania region in Southwestern France. In 2019, it had a population of 4,008. Geography Labège is a commune in the metropolitan area of Toulouse. Its urban core is lo ...

near

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...

, France, and has over 375 employees. The firm also has offices in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

Technology

Sigfox employs the differential binary

phase-shift keying Phase-shift keying (PSK) is a digital modulation process which conveys data by changing (modulating) the phase of a constant frequency reference signal (the carrier wave). The modulation is accomplished by varying the sine and cosine inputs at a ...

(DBPSK) and the Gaussian frequency shift keying (GFSK) that enables communication using the

Short-range device A short-range device (SRD), described by ECC Recommendation 70-03, is a radio-frequency transmitter device used in telecommunication for the transmission of information, which has low capability of causing harmful interference to other radio equ ...

band of 868 MHz in Europe, and the Industrial, Scientific and Medical radio band of 902 MHz in the US. It utilizes a wide-reaching signal that passes freely through solid objects, called "

Ultra Narrowband In communication engineering, Ultra NarrowBand (UNB) systems are those in which the channel has a very narrow bandwidth. Technical characteristics An ultra narrowband receiver is highly selective and can reject noise and interference which may ...

" and requires little energy, being termed a "

low-power wide-area network A low-power wide-area network (LPWAN or LPWA network) is a type of wireless telecommunication wide area network designed to allow long-range communications at a low bit rate among things (connected objects), such as sensors operated on a battery ...

" (

LPWAN A low-power wide-area network (LPWAN or LPWA network) is a type of wireless telecommunication wide area network designed to allow long-range communications at a low bit rate among things (connected objects), such as sensors operated on a batter ...

). The network is based on one-hop star topology and requires a mobile operator to carry the generated traffic. The signal can also be used to easily cover large areas and to reach underground objects. As of November 2020, the Sigfox IoT network has covered a total of 5.8 million square kilometers in a total of 72 countries with 1.3 billion of the world population reached. Sigfox has partnered with a number of firms in the LPWAN industry such as

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...

Silicon Labs Silicon Laboratories, Inc. (Silicon Labs) is a fabless global technology company that designs and manufactures semiconductors, other silicon devices and software, which it sells to electronics design engineers and manufacturers in Internet of Th ...

and

ON Semiconductor onsemi (stylized in lowercase; legally ON Semiconductor Corporation; formerly ON Semiconductor until August 5, 2021) is an American semiconductor supplier company, based in Phoenix, Arizona and ranked #483 on the 2022 ''Fortune'' 500 based on it ...

. The ISM radio bands support limited bidirectional communication. The existing standard for Sigfox communications supports up to 140 uplink messages a day, each of which can carry a payload of 12 octets at a data rate of up to 100 bits per second.

Coverage

Map of coverage and countries under roll-out

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sigfox Internet technology companies of France Internet of things companies Wireless networking French companies established in 2009