Avanci rolls out smart meter licensing in ‘growing market’
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Avanci has launched its 4G Smart Meter patent licensing programme, the first Internet of Things (IoT) scheme beyond the automotive sector.
The programme, announced yesterday, October 31, has launched with 39 licensors on board so far including Ericsson, Kyocera, Mitsubishi Electric, Oppo, Samsung and Siemens.
Global smart metering company EDMI as the programme’s first licensee.
The programme builds on Avanci’s 4G Vehicle, which now comprises more than 145 million connected vehicles from more than 95 automotive brands covered by an Avanci 4G Vehicle licence.
According to Avanci, 4G Smart Meter simplifies the process of licensing essential cellular technologies for the growing global 4G smart meter market and is open to both manufacturers, as well as grid operators that brand their own smart meters.
Energy control
Smart meters are electronic devices that record, generate, transmit, and/or receive information regarding the production, use, flow, or consumption of a utility, such as electric energy, water, or gas.
Designed to enable consumers and businesses to have more control over their energy consumption, they can potentially improve the sustainability of utility distribution grids by reducing losses in energy distribution, as well as helping to conserve resources such as water and natural gas.
A smart meter communicates information wirelessly, but does not use cellular functionality for any non-utility related purpose. It relies upon communications technologies including cellular, which have been developed through open standardisation.
Analyst firm Transforma Insights has forecast that more than 15 million 4G smart meters in the scope of Avanci’s programme will be sold in 2023, with more than 160 million predicted to be sold during the next 10 years, said Avanci.
Marianne Frydenlund, vice president and head of IoT licensing at Avanci, said that when she joined Avanci in 2022, there were approximately 28 patent owners in the programme.
“I have spoken to a lot of manufacturers over the last year, and managed to increase participation in the programme,” Frydenlund told WIPR.
“We’re now at 39 patent owners, and that was the point where the manufacturers said, ‘this is now a good alternative for us’.
“I'm very glad now that we have EDMI as our first licensee. I was very happy to see this over the finish line, which was really great.”
A growing market
Frydenlund added that smart meters are one of the verticals within IoT with the biggest volumes in terms of numbers.
“There are hundreds of millions of smart meters,” she explained. “But this vertical is very diverse—you have specific smart meters for electricity, and specific ones for water and for gas and they use different technology.”
Avanci’s Smart Meter programme focuses on meters in LTE (long-term evolution) Category 1 and higher, which are typically used for smart meter gateways and electricity grids, said Frydenlund.
Avanci’s 4G Smart Meter licence covers meters enabling 4G-connected meters.
Smart meters that communicate solely using the NB-IoT (Narrowband Internet of Things) and/or LTE-M ( short for Long-Term Evolution Machine Type Communication) subsets of the 4G standard are not covered by the programme.
The company offers a single licence covering the 4G, 3G, and 2G essential patents of the 39 licensors in the programme, together with those of any licensors that join in future, at a fixed rate of $3 per meter, paid once for the lifetime of the meter.
A level playing field
“I think the IoT industry in general now benefits from more available joint licensing solutions. And that's what we want to bring forward in Avanci—we just want to add to the simplicity of licensing,” said Frydenlund.
“And the more joint licensing programmes, the easier for IoT manufacturers to take a licence. Also, for the SMEs, the smaller companies, it brings so much simplicity and efficiency to take a licence through Avanci.”
She added that joint licensing programmes create a level playing field in the market.
“The leverage that larger corporations have in negotiations with internal legal departments, internal IP departments—smaller companies may not have that. What we do is negotiate for them.
“We have this simple form agreement that everybody gets—it's the same terms and conditions and there's no volume discount for the larger manufacturers.”
Roy Kirsopp, CEO at EDMI, said in a statement: “We joined the Avanci 4G Smart Meter patent licensing programme to assure our valued customers and partners that EDMI takes its licensing obligations seriously.
“An Avanci licence is extremely valuable as it gives us authorised, licensed access to a broad range of 4G technology patent owners in a simple and efficient manner.”
Smart meter manufacturers and owners of cellular essential patents can email IOT@avanci.com for more information.
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