As India accelerates one of the world’s largest smart metering transformations, Wirepas sees the market as both a major growth opportunity and a real-world proving ground for large-scale IoT connectivity. In this interview with The Statesman, Teppo Hemiä, Founder and CEO of Wirepas, discusses how India’s scale, diversity and infrastructure complexity are shaping the company’s global innovation roadmap. He also explains Wirepas’ decentralized mesh technology, its performance-linked model, the role of NR+ in the future of massive IoT, and how the company is supporting India’s energy efficiency, sustainability and digital grid ambitions through reliable, interoperable and cost-efficient connectivity.
1. India is undergoing one of the world’s largest smart metering transformations. What makes this market uniquely complex and high-potential?
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India combines scale, diversity and urgency in a way few markets do. Deployment environments range from dense urban clusters to highly dispersed rural geographies, often within the same network. That creates variability in radio conditions, infrastructure availability and installation density that cannot be addressed through uniform approaches.
At the same time, the ambition is systemic. Smart metering in India is not a pilot-led transition but a foundational layer for broader energy reform. That elevates expectations around reliability, lifecycle cost and long-term operability.
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The opportunity lies precisely in that complexity. Solutions that perform in India are, by definition, resilient and scalable. It becomes proving ground where technologies are validated under real-world conditions rather than controlled environments.
2. What strategic decisions enabled Wirepas to scale rapidly within India’s AMI ecosystem?
The approach has been to align with the structure of ecosystem rather than trying to reshape it. India’s AMI landscape is inherently collaborative, involving utilities, meter manufacturers, system integrators and service providers.
Key decision was to build technology that integrates across this ecosystem without imposing rigid dependencies. Interoperability and hardware flexibility have been central allowing multiple stakeholders to operate within a shared connectivity layer. This is further reinforced through the Wirepas Certified platform, which ensures that devices from different manufacturers meet consistent performance and interoperability standards in real deployments.
Equally important has been a focus on predictable performance at scale. In large infrastructure programs, consistency matters more than peak capability. Networks must behave reliably over years, not just in initial deployments.
3. How does decentralized mesh technology redefine cost and reliability for large-scale deployments?
Traditional network models tend to concentrate intelligence and cost in infrastructure. As scale increases, so does the requirement for additional gateways, planning and maintenance.
A decentralized mesh approach distributes that intelligence across devices. Each endpoint participates in maintaining connectivity, which changes the economics fundamentally. Growth strengthens the network instead of burdening it.
Reliability follows the same principle. With multiple communication paths available, the system adapts dynamically to changes in environment or topology. There is no reliance on a single connection point, which improves resilience without introducing additional cost layers.
4. How has Wirepas adapted to India’s diverse urban and rural connectivity challenges?
Adaptation has come from designing for variability rather than optimizing for specific scenarios. Indian deployments are rarely homogeneous. Dense apartment blocks, informal housing< and remote rural installations all coexist within a single rollout.
A distributed communication model allows the network to adjust organically to these conditions. In dense areas, higher device concentration improves connectivity paths. In sparse environments, the system extends coverage incrementally without requiring parallel infrastructure expansion.
The emphasis has been on minimizing manual intervention. Networks must be capable of self-optimization because operational complexity increases rapidly at national scale.
5. What role will NR+ play in shaping the future of IoT globally, and how critical is India to that journey?
NR+ reflects a shift toward purpose-built connectivity for massive IoT. It moves away from adapting consumer mobile architectures and instead addresses the structural needs of large device networks: scalability, resilience and cost predictability.
Its significance lies in standardization without imposing the cost framework of traditional cellular models. That opens the door for broader adoption across industries where connectivity has historically been constrained by economics.
India is central to this evolution. The scale and diversity of deployments provide a real-world validation environment. Technologies that succeed here establish credibility for global adoption.
6. How does your “pay for performance” model shift accountability in large infrastructure projects?
Infrastructure programs often carry an inherent asymmetry: investment is committed upfront, while performance risk emerges over time. Aligning cost with actual outcomes addresses that imbalance.
A performance-linked model introduces a measurable standard. Connectivity is not defined by deployment but by sustained operation. If endpoints are not delivering, they are not counted.
This creates clarity for all stakeholders. It reduces uncertainty for utilities and establishes a shared accountability framework across the ecosystem.
7. How is Wirepas contributing to India’s sustainability and energy efficiency goals?
Sustainability in energy systems begins with visibility. Without accurate, timely data, it is difficult to address losses, optimize distribution or integrate renewable sources effectively.
Connectivity enables that visibility at scale. The ability to collect data reliably from millions of endpoints supports more informed decision-making across the grid.
There is also a longevity component. Wirepas RF mesh networks have no set end dates or sunsets, they can operate for as long as needed.
8. How do partnerships drive innovation and scale in your India strategy?
Scale in India is achieved through ecosystems, not standalone solutions. Each stakeholder brings a specific capability: manufacturing, deployment, system integration or analytics.
Partnerships allow innovation to occur at the system level rather than within isolated components. That is particularly important in infrastructure projects where outcomes depend on how well different layers work together.
An open approach also accelerates adoption. When multiple participants can operate within the same framework, scale becomes a function of collaboration rather than coordination constraints.
9. Beyond smart metering, what emerging IoT use cases excite you most in India?
The common thread across emerging use cases is the need to connect large numbers of distributed assets in a cost-efficient manner.
Industrial monitoring, logistics and smart infrastructure are areas where visibility can directly translate into operational efficiency. Asset tracking, predictive maintenance and monitoring are gaining traction as industries digitize.
What is notable is that these use cases share similar connectivity requirements with smart metering – scale, reliability and low operating cost.
10. What is your long-term vision for Wirepas in India, and how will the market influence your global roadmap?
India represents a long-term commitment rather than a single market opportunity. The objective is to support infrastructure that remains relevant over decades.
Learnings from India have direct impact on global development priorities. Requirements around scalability, resilience, operational simplicity are shaped by real-world deployments here.
In that sense, India functions as both growth market and reference environment. It influences how connectivity solutions evolve to meet the demands of large-scale, real-world systems globally.
Wirepas is already working on the next generation requirements for India. Current RDSS program is expected to remain as today. However, India Energy Stack has high ambitions with open and interoperable digital backbone for India’s power sector. It aims to standardise data exchange, accelerate renewable energy integration and enable peer-to-peer energy trading. Wirepas already has capability for sub-second meter reading intervals with the highest end NR+ platform. We collaborate closely with India standardization bodies and are committed to the IES vision.
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