The Sunshine State has unveiled the nation’s largest digital network and a raft of smart services in a bid to become Australia’s leading digital city in just two years.

A new nation-first IoT network unveiled on Monday will see the City of Gold Coast introduce a number of smart services including smart water meters, waste management services and parking to help council streamline public services and unlock $12 million in savings.

The rollout of the LoRaWAN network, which developers say is Australia’s largest and most diverse IoT network, is part of an ambitious plan by council to become the country’s most advanced smart city.

The network, which has the capacity to support more than 600,000 sensors and real-time management tools, will see council introduce a range of smart tools in the coming months.

City of Gold Coast Mayor, Tom Tate said the network is part of the Gold Coast’s vision to be Australia’s leading digital city by 2021.

“We used the Commonwealth Games as a catalyst to accelerate digital infrastructure and we have committed further investment over the last year.”

“We now have one of the largest Council-owned digital networks in Australia that will enable us to accelerate the delivery of cutting-edge services while keep rates low.”

“By utilising our own network, we anticipate that we’ll be able to save approximately $12 million per annum in avoided costs once all of the IoT systems are installed.”

The news comes just one year after council introduced the nation’s largest council-owned fibre optic network.

NNNCo Founder and CEO Rob Zagarella said the scale of the Gold Coast’s new network will result in huge gains for council and ratepayers alike.

“Gold Coast industry has the opportunity to gain real traction with their IoT and digitisation strategies to improve productivity, streamline operations and deliver new and improved services to their markets,” he said.

NNNCo has been running IoT test cases using the technology for the past two years and is currently investigating other public service use cases for the product.

“This means that we’re ready to rapidly deploy projects across the network, starting with smart water meters. New approaches are also being developed for a range of services, including waste management and parking,” Mr Zagarella said.

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