Orange has partnered with SmartKey to create a Blockchain of Things (BoT) SIM card to enable access controls, smart bikes, utilities and other elements of smart cities to be managed from a phone using blockchain technology. The new service will go live in 80 cities across Poland, with the first live use case an extension of SmartKey’s successful ‘Rescue without Barriers’ pilot. This pilot meant that rescue services in Olsztyn, Poland were able to use SmartKey to gain immediate access for rescue vehicles, significantly cutting response times and saving lives.
The BoT solution will be integrated with the global Live Objects IoT platform, which is already being used to manage smart city services such as remote reading of water meters and street lighting control. Going forward devices with an Orange BoT SIM will be able to generate and distribute Smart NFT access keys in the publicly-available SmartKey blockchain network – a capability that will be available to any Orange IoT device worldwide. Unauthorised use of the virtual key will be prevented because of the combination of blockchain technology and Orange network security standards.
“Smart devices are not a new idea,” said Sebastian Grabowski, Director of IoT and Advanced Technologies at Orange. “Already over 2 million M2M cards from Orange work, among others, in such devices throughout Poland. However, even a wide range of such devices does not create a network in itself, just as a collection of houses does not create a city. We also need an infrastructure that connects IoT technology with the end user, and this is what blockchain provides.”
Szymon Fiedorowicz, CEO and co-founder of SmartKey, added; “To enable Blockchain of Things devices to operate within the smart city of the future, we created a universal communication standard to connect devices over short distances. This cooperation with Orange…will help our solution become a connective tissue for smart cities and cement our role in the smart city of the future, opening up a world of new possibilities for the Internet of Things.”