A Spanish digital retail company, Beabloo, recently announced a solution for pharmacies (and other key retail stores) to manage social distancing for Covid19. It is a good example of very rapid IoT innovation, based on an existing set of capabilities and an immediate need. They are integrating remote sensors and displays within a pharmacy, to allow the effective policing of social distancing in store (see figure). It is a practical example of the type of smart city applications that are often seen as key users of telco networks, and 5G in particular. Where are the telcos? Beabloo have strong working partnerships with major IoT players like Intel and Microsoft, but it was noticeable that there is no mention of Telco partnerships, even for communications. Within a store, communication is undoubtably being achieved through Bluetooth and WiFi. However, the problem of social distancing in retail stores goes far beyond the confines of the building. This should be an opportunity for Telco. If an application knows there is a queue for the pharmacy then this is information that you might want to subscribe to via messaging or in response to being geographically close (so you can avoid queue). The pharmacy sees […]