Monarch Go – The Fastest Way to Achieve ROI in Cellular IoT

Almost everywhere you look, there’s a great idea for a cellular IoT business case looking for a place to start.  The problem is that cellular IoT is not easy and generally requires specialized expertise and tremendous amounts of work to design your device and connect it to the cellular network. First you have to design the hardware, software, antenna, and cloud connection, and then you have to win network certification through a very long and demanding carrier acceptance process.  Completing all this work is not for the faint of heart, and it can take months or even years of dedicated effort.

To avoid this, you may have considered connecting your device via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth instead, but these networks are not secure, and can be easily hacked, so they are not suitable if your IoT device must meet the high security requirements for applications in healthcare, banking, shopping or retail---and these are some of the most lucrative IoT opportunities around today.  Cellular IoT gives you a direct connection to the network and cloud that is reliable, always on, and everywhere available. Consequently, you avoid the hassles of setting up and configuring Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Non-cellular solutions are not mobile, scalable, or able to support worldwide deployment.  If you want to really make money in IoT---that is, design once and deploy everywhere---it has to be cellular.

Sequans and Verizon have invented an IoT connectivity solution that is so well thought out and complete that you can get your device connected to the IoT in a matter of days, even if you don’t have specific cellular expertise, not only saving you the months or years of time mentioned earlier, but also saving you huge amounts of cash, enabling you to reach ROI faster than you ever thought possible. The invention is called Monarch Go. It is a cellular IoT connectivity solution that comes prepackaged with everything you need to connect your IoT device to the carrier network; yes, everything.

What is Monarch Go? And How is it Different From a Typical Cellular Module?

To get a good idea of what Monarch Go is, start with a traditional LTE-M / NB-IoT module and then add a pre-installed and pre-tuned LTE-optimized antenna, a Verizon SIM card, a data plan with economic package options and easy setup, and last but not least, certification by Verizon, and you have a solution like no other.  With Monarch Go you just plug it in and go. It gives IoT device makers the shortest route to market and lowest total cost of ownership possible in cellular IoT today.  No need to design and tune an antenna. No need to install a SIM card and source a data plan. No need to go through lab testing and carrier certification. All this has already been done for you.

How Much Money Can You Save? How Do the Costs of Designing an IoT Device Using Monarch Go Compare to the Costs of Using a Traditional Module?

In a typical deployment using a traditional module, it would take about 15 people working six months to design the hardware, and two more people working two months to support carrier certification. Estimating an annual salary of $150 thousand for each worker, you will spend $1.175 million in salaries. Using Monarch Go in the same situation, you’d need only five people to design the hardware over only two months (because the cellular antenna design is already done) and you’d need only two people to support certification of your device for only three weeks (because Monarch Go is already certified by Verizon). In this scenario, you’d pay only $145 thousand in salaries and only three months of effort, saving you over one million dollars and six months of time compared to what it would cost you using a traditional module.  This is a huge savings! Here’s what this means for you in savings per device: for 1000 units, you’d save $985.00 per device; for 10,000 units, you’d save $98.50 per device; and for 50,000 units, you’d save $19.70 per device. This is more than enough to make up the cost difference between Monarch Go and a standard M2M module, not to mention the advantage Monarch Go gives you by getting you to market (and ROI) much, much faster.

Think about what you’d be free to accomplish to improve your service if you were able to leave the connectivity in the hands of Sequans’ Monarch Go!  You’d be able to focus your precious resources on your key differentiators, such as your AI, cloud and analytics services, polishing your brand while greatly improving the value of your IoT service to your customers. And that’s what it is all about.

Verizon is all in on Monarch Go providing not only customer support, but also SIM cards and IoT-optimized data plans.  Through Verizon’s ThingSpace IoT Marketplace, IoT companies can choose the SIM card and data plan that works best for their particular business case, and it is a simple matter to choose the options best for you.  Verizon even offers a connectivity plan calculator that lets you see how much data you need, based on the number and type of devices you wish to deploy.

The Benefits of Working with Sequans

Sequans is the only chip and module company focused 100 percent on IoT. Our IoT modules, including Monarch Go, are designed from the ground up with a focus on IoT and you won’t find this anywhere else.  We are a one-stop-shop from chip to module and this powerful vertical integration delivers huge benefits in accountability, efficiency, and quality. The value of this comes effectively into play when you start with Monarch Go, perhaps with low volumes, but then become so successful, reaching a volume of 50,000 units per year, where every penny counts, and we then license our board design to you, enabling you to reduce your cost per device significantly.  Then, when you reach the 1 or 2 million unit mark, we can even license our module design to you so you can go chip down for even more upside. This approach enables you to keep the same design and same software throughout the life of your product, ensuring your investment is future proof.

We know what it takes to enable massive IoT, and we know how to make it happen for you. Get started with Monarch Go and you will be there before you know it.

Learn all about Monarch Go here.

Available Development Kits from Avnet in the Market

Avnet offers multiple development kit to enable users with this technology. The first being a Monarch LTE-M Development Kit, which features a LPC55S69-EVK from NXP, an Arduino Shield from Avnet, and  finally the Monarch Go from Sequans.

In addition Avnet offers a Monarch Go Pi Hat that enables users with raspberry pi HAT compliant platforms to connect a Monarch Go.