City of Gold Coast council is set to deploy an internet of things network covering an area of more than 1300 square kilometres in partnership with NNNCo.

The network will be Australia’s biggest using the low-power wireless standard LoRaWAN and will be available to support a range of IoT applications throughout the local government area.

It comes off the back of plans by the council to extend a carrier-grade fibre optic network through parts of its constituency.

City of Gold Coast chief innovation and economy officer Ian Hatton said the LoRA network would form a “key step in the City’s digital city program”.

“We’re developing a secure, scalable, commercial-grade IoT network that will enable infinite
use cases by businesses, enterprise and the council,” Hatton said.

“NNNCo have been engaged because of their proven ability to build the network and bring commercial solutions that have the potential to significantly add value to Gold Coast residents and businesses.”

City of Gold Coast has immediate plans to utilise the network for large-volume use cases
including digital water metering, waste management and community infrastructure such as
parks and sporting fields.

“Digitising our water management will deliver important benefits including lowering costs,
early problem detection and ultimately reducing pressure on our water supplies,” Hatton
said.

“The City manages more than 170,000 water meters and our intent is to have all of
them running over the network in the future.”

NNNCo founder and CEO Rob Zagarella said the scale of the Gold Coast network was a
signal of the fast growing adoption of IoT by cities both in Australia and globally.