PARTNER FEATURE:

The NB-IoT ecosystem is booming and NB-IoT has already outperformed other technologies.

On 27th June 2017, the GSMA organized its 4th MIoT Summit in Shanghai. The summit explored the latest development of 3GPP-based LPWA technologies across the industry. In particular, it demonstrated the huge traction behind NB-IoT in the industry and in various vertical segments. Several companies have been invited to share their experience with the audience. It was the occasion to illustrate the large scope of NB-IoT applications, from gas metering (Pietro-Fiorentini) to bicycle sharing (ofo) and white goods (Haier).

These are just a few examples. The possibilities for NB-IoT seem unlimited as depicted by the variety of verticals supporting NB-IoT in the GSMA MIoT Innovator programme (https://www.gsma.com/iot/mobile-iot-innovators-member-list). In less than a year, this initiative generated support in NB-IoT from 545 companies (out of a total of 546!). Overall, when adding the NB-IoT Forum members (https://www.gsma.com/iot/narrow-band-internet-of-things-nb-iot), it means that the GSMA NB-IoT ecosystem already passed the 600 companies milestone, making it the largest LPWA ecosystem globally.

Leading chipset and module vendors all support NB-IoT
Naturally, given the size of the NB-IoT market business opportunity, all the leading chipset vendors (QC, Huawei, Mediatek, Sequans) and module vendors (Telit, u-blox, Sierra Wireless, Gemalto, Quectel) have all joined the GSMA NB-IoT Forum and provide NB-IoT solutions.

NB-IoT deployment pace is accelerating significantly
At the occasion of this MIoT Summit, the GSMA also published a detailed press release (https://www.gsma.com/newsroom/press-release/gsma-mobile-iot-initiative-takes-off-multiple-commercial-network-launches-around-world/) about MIoT rollouts. NB-IoT took the lion’s share with 7 commercial network launches including 4 in Europe (DT in NL and Germany, VF in Spain and NL) and 3 in China (China Telecom nationwide, China Mobile and China Unicom in several cities/provinces), and during MWC shanghai, China Mobile officially announced to complete the full coverage in 346 cities of China by end of 2017.

NB-IoT is the choice of global operators , even in the US
Until now, market perception was that the US was a LTE-M only market. However, at least two US MNOs made their NB-IoT coming out recently. T-Mobile US just confirmed plans to launch NB-IoT in 2018 (https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/first-narrowband-iot-service-packages-launched-in-germany-497494) while Sprint unveiled NB-IoT & LTE-M rollout ambitions (http://newsroom.sprint.com/news-releases/sprint-to-support-next-generation-iot-devices-across-its-nationwide-network.htm) earlier this year.

This means that NB-IoT is supported on all continents.

The world is going to benefit from Chinese NB-IoT economies of scale
Of course, one key benefit of NB-IoT that has been emphasized is low cost on device side. If the low device complexity of the technology is the key enabler, the economies of scale associated to NB-IoT are even more important. From this perspective, during the GSMA MIoT Summit, several speakers mentioned the recently approved plan by MIIT for NB-IoT as of high significance (http://xxgk.miit.gov.cn/gdnps/wjfbContent.jsp?id=5692719). The Chinese government positioned NB-IoT as a strategic priority and consequently defined very ambitious targets with up to 20 million NB-IoT connections and 400K BTS to be upgraded by end 2017. By 2020, these targets will explode to at least 600 million connections supported by 1.5 million BTS. Such huge numbers will dramatically impact costs. Because NB-IoT is a 3GPP global standard, these economies of scale will benefit to the whole industry and make confident in its capability to quickly reach the low cost-level required.

3GPP standard guarantees interoperability and scale
The rapid market adoption of NB-IoT relies heavily on the fact that the technology is a 3GPP standard. Like for any other 3GPP technologies, it means interoperability, global reach, roaming, security, etc…

For MNOs, the other strategic advantage, and probably the most important one, is that NB-IoT cost-efficiently leverages their key assets. NB-IoT can be deployed mostly by software updates in existing MNO networks while it can be deployed in several ways in various spectrum bands (standalone, in-band, in guard bands). This is the fundamental reason why operators such as China Telecom can move so quickly to ensure nationwide coverage to a country as big as China. It is also the reason why the first commercial networks have been launched only 7 months after standardization was finalized by 3GPP.

Regarding interoperability in particular, MNOs and vendors conducted the traditional tests between the various network components as well as between radio network and devices (modules/chipsets). This is the usual procedure for all 3GPP technologies. This is another explanation why MNOs can launch commercial multi-vendor networks nationwide. Several MNOs already completed this work earlier this year like China Telecom (http://www.chinatelecom.com.cn/news/02/201701/t20170124_30829.html) and Vodafone (http://www.vodafone.com/content/index/what/technology-blog/multi-vendor-nbiot.html).

3GPP clearly defined NB-IoT evolution as the only narrow-band option for LWPA
NB-IoT capabilities will be further enhanced. In June 2017, at the 3GPP RAN #76 Plenary Meeting, the mobile telecommunication industry reached an agreement of the way forward for NB-IoT in 3GPP Release 15. It confirmed NB-IoT as the narrow-band (UE system bandwidth ≤200KHz) mIoT (massive IoT) solution and LTE-M (eMTC) as the wide-band (UE system bandwidth ≥1.4MHz) mIoT solution. More details at http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/tsg_ran/TSG_RAN/TSGR_76/Docs/RP-171467.zip.