SK Telecom presented a variety of fascinating IoT services at MWC 2105. But, the most fascinating of all was Weather Pong.
Weather Pong is a real-time weather information service that installs dedicated weather monitoring sensors and communication modules (IoT GWs) at cell sites, collects all weather information (i.e. precipitation, temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind direction, wind speed, etc.), and provides it to customers like Korea Meteorological Administration, etc.
Every minute, weather information collected by the sensors at cell sites is sent to IoT platforms, via the mobile network. Today, there are over 1,100 weather sensors, located 1~3 km apart, across the cell sites in Seoul metropolitan area, collecting weather information of higher precision and accuracy than the Korean Meteorological Administration (KMA), which has only about 400 observation stations. Unlike KMA, SK Telecom has already had tens of thousands of cell sites nationwide, and thus requires much less costs of leasing installation sites.
In that regard, weather information service would be the IoT service that is best suitable for mobile operators.