Vodafone New Zealand announced it simultaneously launched two cellular IoT network technologies, NB-IoT and LTE-M, on its 4G network.

It said the NB-IoT coverage is available across its 4G network, with coverage of 97.5 per cent of the population and 48.2 per cent of the land mass at launch. The LTE-M rollout is underway and offers 60.1 per cent population coverage, which will increase to 96.6 per cent and a land mass of 40.8 per cent as additional sites are deployed.

The operator, the market leader with a 41 per cent share of mobile connections, said it has more than 1.6 million cellular IoT connections.

Scott Pollard, Vodafone IoT country manager, said both technologies will enable connectivity for a wide range of devices using licensed spectrum.

He said NB-IoT delivers signal strength which can penetrate through concrete, underwater, underground and deep into infrastructure, and is set to shape the connected farm of the future. LTE-M offers strong battery life and fast throughput of data to enable real-time applications including vehicle tracking, asset monitoring and logistics.

Pollard said it is running some pilot NB-IoT projects.

Rival Spark, the second largest mobile operator the country, in September switched on a low power wide area (LPWA) IoT network based on LTE-M technology in the country’s main business centres, with a nationwide rollout planned over the coming months.

The IoT network is its second following the rollout of a LoRa version, which the operator in March revealed had covered 60 per cent of the population.

LoRa, which uses unlicensed spectrum, is a proprietary LPWA technology and a rival to 3GPP-licensed LPWA technologies NB-IoT, EC-GSM-IoT and LTE-M (also referred to as LTE Cat M1).