Wi-SUN Alliance sees growth of Wi-SUN FAN certified products
Wi-SUN Alliance has announced a record year for Wi-SUN FAN (Field Area Networks) product certification driven by a growing and active ecosystem of 300+ members in 46 countries.
Driving the proliferation of interoperable wireless solutions for use in smart cities, smart utilities and IoT applications, Wi-SUN now includes a growing number of leading silicon vendors among its top tier of membership. Texas Instruments (TI) is the latest chip vendor to become a Promoter member, with a TI representative joining the Wi-SUN Alliance Board of Directors.
Members of Wi-SUN Alliance have been actively integrating and deploying Wi-SUN technology in the field with a growing number of deployments across Asia, Europe, the US and Latin America. In the last 12 months, the number of Wi-SUN FAN certified products has also grown with more than 60 products now available worldwide, an increase of 40% in the last year.
With record numbers of products being tested and certified, Wi-SUN FAN is to helping to meet demand for open standards-based interoperable solutions for smart city and utility applications, including gas, water and electricity metering, smart lighting and environmental monitoring.
President and CEO of Wi-SUN Alliance, Phil Beecher, commented: “It has been a hugely important 12 months at Wi-SUN Alliance as our members step up to accelerate the development of Wi-SUN FAN compliant products. With the support of some of the world’s leading device manufacturers and biggest silicon vendors, we are seeing real growth in the number of products submitted for testing and certification. This reflects ever increasing market demand for interoperability of IoT products and solutions based on open standards.”
New partnerships accelerate Wi-SUN FAN testing and certification:
Wi-SUN Alliance is also announcing a series of partnerships with members to ensure the testing and certification of products is as fast and straightforward as possible, and also cost-effective.
In Brazil, ELDORADO Institute is opening the first laboratory in the Americas for testing and certification of products designed for Wi-SUN FAN, as adoption of the technology grows in the region. The facility in Campinas (recognised as the Brazilian capital of science, technology and innovation) near São Paulo will ensure that products are tested to meet the rigorous requirements for energy companies and services providers – to deliver open standards-based interoperable solutions, including energy, water and gas services.
ELDORADO, which has been at the heart of R&D and innovation in Brazil for over two decades, and Wi-SUN have collaborated for more than two years to develop the laboratory. ELDORADO will become an approved test facility for Wi-SUN Alliance, making its service available to companies in Brazil and Latin America, but will be open to testing products from other countries.
QualityLogic has developed the official Wi-SUN FAN v1.0 Test Bed Controller (TBC), a conformance and interoperability testing environment making it straightforward for companies to test and verify their Wi-SUN FAN compliant products. QualityLogic will provide the TBC, as well technical support, maintenance, training and turnkey Wi-SUN FAN v1.0 Test Bed services.
WISeKey also joins Wi-SUN Alliance to provide certificate authority services to its members. The company will become a third party supplier of certificates for Wi-SUN FAN products ensuring that devices that connect to a Wi-SUN FAN are fully authenticated. Authentication of device identity is fundamental in delivering a robust security architecture.
Phil Beecher added: “The Wi-SUN Alliance ecosystem continues to grow, delivering all aspects needed by organisations as they deploy large-scale IoT networks. With new partners on board and with the support of our members, we are is putting in place the building blocks to ensure utilities, cities and services providers have everything they need to support the growth and evolution of their IoT networks.”