Cellular Puts IoT on Speed Dial

China Telecom starts NB-IoT at $3/year

Rick Merritt, EETimes, Sept. 18, 2017 – 

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Carriers are driving aggressively into cellular IoT, with China Telecom leading the way with narrowband IoT (NB-IoT). They are playing a game of catch-up that some expect they will win with low-power wide-area (LPWA) alternatives led by Sigfox and LoRa that had a two-year-plus head start.

That was the picture from the Mobile World Congress Americas, where each side made the case for its play in the emerging Internet of Things. "It feels like we are on the cusp of an IoT explosion," said Karri Kuoppamaki, vice president of technology development and strategy at T-Mobile, which aims to roll out an NB-IoT network in the U.S. by June.

"What's next and key is showing an ROI in real networks," said Hardy Schmidbauer, chief executive of TrackNet, a startup launched this year using LoRa and Wi-Fi for asset tracking.

"Carriers would like to wipe out their LPWA competitors, and I believe they will," said Michael Murphy, CTO in North America for Nokia. "There is zero doubt [that] carriers view this as one of their most important goals."

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