Founded in 2010, IGL-Technologies offers parking management solutions that include booking a parking space, paying for street parking, and controlling car charging posts. The company electrifies parking areas with solid experience together with DNA SIM cards and data connections.
The story of IGL-Technologies took off when CEO Alexander Ivaine was still studying at Tampere University of Technology. Ivaine looked at the car heating posts visible from the school window in the yard and thought that a solution should be found for their remote control. Ivainen's studies on automation dealt with various networks, from which the idea came about.
"When IGL-Technologies started operating more than 10 years ago, we originally focused on charging services for electric cars. There was a lot of talk about them, but they were nowhere to be seen. However, the number of electric cars did not really start to grow until about 2015, so we started to develop solutions for parking service management alongside," Ivaine says.
When electric cars started appearing on the roads, the charging part of the company also started to grow rapidly. The company currently has 20,000 charging points both in Finland and abroad. However, IGL-Technologies does not sell the devices themselves, but focuses on software and device control. Currently, the company employs 10 people and grows every year.
Journey from 2G network towards LTE-M technology
The control of the car charging posts requires a secure network that works without delays - even in challenging conditions. When a customer needs a charging post, they want to connect to it immediately, and not wait for any additional seconds. That's why reliable connections are paramount.
"The other operators' interfaces were difficult to use and abstract. DNA's services i.e. SIM cards and data connections, were available immediately. In addition, the integration was simple to implement. The deployment was also easy and the price quality ratio is right," Ivaine describes.
Currently, the charging posts work on the 2G and 3G networks, but there are plans to switch to LTE-M, which is a mobile network that enables connection even from long distances and while in motion. At the same time, it can carry large amounts of data without increasing the power consumption of the devices.
"We have also tried NB-IoT and Sigfox connections, but LTE-M's real-time functionality and low latency have proven to work for us. Especially in challenging places such as underground parking garages or in rural areas, LTE-M works best," Ivaine says.
Ivaine says that for five years now they have been satisfied DNA partners. If there have been challenges along the way, they have always been solved.
"With DNA, we have succeeded in improving the reliability of the service by, for example, knowing how much data is transferred and whether the posts are online," Ivaine says.
With these solutions, we made our customers' business more effective:
- Mobile broadband
- IoT/M2M interfaces
