INTERVIEW Darren King - Three Wholesale
“The sheer ecosystem around IoT is astoundingly complex and one of the things that we are trying to do is make
it easier to connect onto the network.“ Darren King, Head of Business Development - Three Wholesale
Turning the IoT corner
Following the announcement of a global partnership with Pareteum, Three Wholesale Head of Business
Development Darren King shared his thoughts on the Internet of Things with Elliot Mulley-Goodbarne
Three’s lesser-known
Wholesale business is one
that is growing.
All in, the connections
across the consumer MVNO,
Enterprise & IoT and Enable &
AppVNO sectors that make up
ree Wholesale, have grown to
account for 12 per cent of all of
ree’s business.
Year on year, in particular
IoT subscribers has grown by
85 per cent which only stands
to be bolstered by agreements
with Jola and more recently
Pareteum, an IoT, MVNO and
enterprise comms enabler across
50 countries.
“We’ve got a really strong
focus on growing the IoT
market” said Darren King,
ree’s Head of Wholesale
Business Development, “IoT
covers a multitude of dierent
type of applications but we are
seeing the market almost split
into two focuses.
What we’re seeing is massive
connectivity devices that will
connect to the network a few
times a day, to get updates or
when control needs to be taken.
ese new low-power devices,
with the amount of innovation
around sensor technology, are
astounding.
e other side is more the
high speed 5G space where
you’re seeing a building site for
example building sites almost
completely digital in terms of the
deployment of workforces and
the updating of plans.”
King also added that, when
it comes to 5G and innovations
on their network, the Internet of
ings is front and centre on the
minds of decision makers in UK
business but mobile will still have
a huge role on these networks.
“I think there’s growth in
all areas to be honest. We were
talking about this new market,
these are things the businesses
and entrepreneurs are just
starting to think about how they
could make it work and what
they could connect.
e sheer ecosystem around
IoT is astoundingly complex
and one of the things that we
are trying to do is make it easier
to connect onto the network.
ere’s denitely growth there,
there’s growth in mobility as
well because these devices in our
pockets aren’t getting dumber,
they are doing more and more
things and are becoming more
critical so I think this growth in
both spaces really.”
e latest partnership
announcement with Pareteum is
aimed to boost the IoT coverage
for ree, utilising its reach of 80
ree Wholesale Head of Business
Development Darren King
partners in 50 countries.
“Pareteum is our latest
partnership, they are really
focused on enterprise
enablement, the Internet of
ings and Telcos a service.
What really excites me about
Pareteum is that the telco cloud
is extremely exible and their
experienced in working with
dozens of operators in dozens
of countries has meant that
platform is really nimble and
that I think is really key to the
MVNO market today.
In IoT, they have a global
presence that’s great for a
coverage perspective IoT
is a global product not a
local product and in the
enterprise space they have a
ton of capabilities in terms
of analytics and insights.
Beyond just providing the
mobile connectivity, they can
provide insight into workforce
management, into workforce
location, at the point people
are using mobility services and
allowing businesses to be more
ecient and gain insight into
their workforce.
One of the strengths that
Pareteum has is that you
could you could do a single
integration with them and have
multiple services in dierent
countries. at is important
from an IoT perspective and an
enterprise perspective.
If you’re a Multinational
Corporation, for example you
have the opportunity to do
one integration with Pareteum
and service a multitude of your
dierent oces depending on
the application.”
e head of ree Wholesale
declined to go into specic gures
around the operator’s growth
aspirations but hopes are high.
“Without mentioning
numbers specically you’d be
hard pressed to nd an analyst
house that it was not predicting
exponential growth from IoT.
Just the sheer number
of applications is becoming
astounding and the entire
ecosystem is almost like a selfreinforcing
cycle because you
see one application develop rst
of all, it becomes productised
and what can start as a local
solution in the UK can go
worldwide and also trigger
adjacent markets as well.
People have been talking
about IoT for a long time but I
think we’ve really hit that stride
now where the productization
of IoT is really leading to
growth and that’s what’s going
to allow successful growth in
the future.”
50 | Comms Business Magazine | November 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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