Pan African connectivity company, Liquid Telecom has launched a country-wide IOT Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) in Kenya.

The company has described the network as the first-of-its-kind and said it will be available for innovators to use to develop market-relevant solutions.

Liquid Telecom will leverage its 300 national towers and a platform by France-based IOT solutions firm Sigfox to roll out the network.

The company said the network will cover 85% of the population and will run on the free ISM band 868MHZ. It added that user will be charged Ksh100 (US$1) per year per device or sensor "but additional costs will apply depending on usage."

"As part of its 'GoCloud' initiative, which is designed to raise awareness, adoption and usage of cloud-based services amongst startups in Africa, we have a new initiative called 'GoThings' that aims to accelerate IOT adoption in the region," read a statement from the company.

Liquid Telecom claims to have beaten Safaricom in the IOT race.

In 2017 Safaricom announced its intention to launch a Narrow Band IoT (NB-IoT) platform for companies, especially start-ups, to launch innovative products in the market.

Ben Roberts, Chief Technology Innovation Officer at Liquid Telecom said, "The introduction of a Sigfox 'Low Power Wide Area Network' (LPWAN) is the first in the region, allowing users to use IOT technology wherever they are and positioning the country to apply cost-effective local solutions using IOT."

"Connecting remote sensors over mobile data requires high battery consumption which is often challenging or not possible in rural Kenya. With our IOT network, the sensors will require no SIM card and last up to 15 years without recharging or changing the battery."