Telensa, which was valued at £11m, will continue to sell under its own brand as a subsidiary of Signify. Telensa claims to have “connected over 2 million street lights in over 400 cities” and will look to increase this current offering as part of Signify.
The company specialises in narrowband and unlicensed spectrum, which compared to licensed cellular broadband can be a lower-cost and longer-range way to transmit lighting while using less data.
The majority of Telensa’s installations are within small and medium sized cities that use what the company calls its “Ultra Narrow Band” network and its PLANet brand to plan deployment and track data about street light status. Recent major deployments for Telensa include across Essex with 130,000 street lights and Birmingham with 107,000 street lights.
Telensa also deploys lighting-connected sensors and imaging technology to provide data on things such as traffic, people, air quality and events. Signify said it will combine this technology with its Interact City Internet of Things (IoT) products and services.
A Signify spokesperson said: ““Together, Signify and Telensa will be able to service the many towns and cities around the world which want to reap the benefits of connected lighting in a cost-efficient way, and bring them into a smart city central management system.
“We are adding a narrowband system to our connected street lighting offering. It enables us to serve even small and mid-sized cities who own and operate a communications network.”
Signify was formerly called Philips Lighting and claims to be the world’s largest lighting company. It has more than 77 million connected light points globally including recent installations at India’s 110,000-seat Motera Stadium and 85,000 outdoor lights across Cologne in Germany (pictured below).
