Honeywell is using AT&T’s IoT Control Center to provision, manage, and connect all of its aircraft and freight in countries around the world. Using sensor tags and 3G modules, Honeywell is able to track and monitor freight shipments that are in transit and aircraft that is on the ground.

According to Joe Mosele, VP of IoT solutions and business development at AT&T, the operator is providing the connectivity and global coverage. Honeywell can activate and deactivate devices remotely, manage its rate plans, and analyze its data usage using AT&T’s control center platform. “If their usage gets up to a certain level or if a device goes offline, the system will send out an alert and they can do something about it,” Mosele said.

Honeywell created its own platform to handle the IoT cloud services and data analytics. These are services that AT&T also offers because many of its customers want the full end-to-end system. But Mosele said that Honeywell had the resources to create its own platform. “Most of our clients use AT&T’s whole ecosystem, but in this case Honeywell has the bandwidth and resources to do it themselves,” he said.

All the connectivity for Honeywell is handled by AT&T’s 3G network. Even though the company deployed a nationwide LTE-M network last May, Honeywell is not using that technology. Mosele noted that LTE-M is better suited for applications that don’t require a lot of bandwidth.

With the connected freight IoT application, Honeywell is using AT&T’s 3G IoT network to track shipments when they are in transit. The company has outfitted pallets and packages with sensors that provide location information and measure things likes humidity and temperature. Honeywell then monitors the data so it can react quickly to prevent damage or loss of shipments.

For the connected aircraft IoT application, AT&T’s network connects airplanes that are on the ground and provides flight crews and maintenance teams with information about the aircraft so they can perform maintenance and improve turnaround time.