Telefonica has clinched a €1.78 billion ($2.4 billion) UK government contract to provide smart meter communication services in the country for the next 15 years.
The telco claims the deal is the largest machine to machine (M2M) contract win in the industry to date. It will see Telefonica provide the infrastructure to connect meters in two of three communications provider slots opened by the government as part of its Smart Meter Implementation Programme, a scheme that aims to deploy 53 million meters throughout the UK by 2020.
“[T]his deal is a huge endorsement of the decision to form Telefónica Digital which gave us the right structure and focus on M2M to take our capabilities in this area to the next level,” says Matthew Key, chief executive of Telefónica Digital.
The company will fulfill the UK contract using a combination of cellular and mesh technologies, having gained experience in deployments in the UK and Nordics – 400,000 connections and 650,000 respectively.
Telefonica was shortlisted for the UK smart meter initiative communications contract last month.