We often hear the term ‘milestones’ to mark key events in business and it’s easy to dismiss them as ‘PR fodder’. But at Wi-SUN we felt it was time to mark our own milestones as an industry body this week with an announcement about our continued growth. It’s fair to say we are going from strength to strength.
Following our momentum story a year ago about the growth in membership, we’ve seen another 50 new members join in the past 12 months, taking our total membership to 227 across 25 different countries. Our global ecosystem now includes a mix of industry stakeholders from silicon chip vendors and product vendors, to services providers, utilities, universities, municipalities and government organizations.
Rethink Technology Research now estimates that organisations in the Wi-SUN ecosystem will see compound annual growth of 20 per cent, as mesh network technology reaches into new industries and sectors, and different business models emerge.
We are seeing our influence continue to grow, with Wi-SUN regarded as the wireless communications infrastructure of choice for very large-scale rollouts. More than 91 million Wi-SUN capable devices (Navigant Research) have been awarded globally as utilities, service providers and city developers increasingly specify Wi-SUN-certified products to enable interoperable, multi-service and secure wireless networks.
We are marking this year of growth with a number of other major milestones, including the launch of our Field Area Networks (FAN) certification program last October and then the launch of the first FAN certified products– from Cisco, Itron, Kyoto University, Landis+Gyr, Nissin Systems, Renesas and ROHM– in February this year.
The launch of FAN and the first certified products is a real game changer in the market, and as we bring more products to markets, we will continue to see more and more interest from other organizations around the world wanting to be part of our unique and influential ecosystem.
Celebrating some of these major milestones is something to be proud of and we took time to do this at our Spring Member Meeting in Atlanta, US last week.
As we see smart cities, utilities and other large-scale IoT networks developed and deployed, we can expect t see Wi-SUN Alliance at the forefront of wireless communications innovation today and in the future.