At M2M World Congress in London, Huawei shared its Narrow-Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) strategy and innovations to advance IoT applications and smart cities. This would deliver social and economical benefits. Huawei also demonstrated how it is building an ecosystem that works together to realize the full potential of NB-IoT, including its collaboration with Vodafone to launch the Vodafone NB-IoT Open Lab in Newbury, U.K.
On the ecosystem development front, on April 25, 2016 , Huawei and Vodafone announced the launch of the Vodafone NB-IoT Open Lab. This Initiative aims to help third parties conduct services including network solution verification, new application innovation, device integration, business model research and product compliance certification. All of this would accelerate the application advancement within the vertical industries and promote the development of the industry chain.
NB-IoT technology has emerged as the Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) standardized by 3GPP. This provides a wide array of significant advantages including supporting more than 100,000 connections per cell, a long battery life of 10 years, deep coverage with a 20db gain over GSM networks. Another advantage is enhanced security supported by two-way authentication and strong interface encryption, providing carrier stability to enable IoT applications and smart cities.
Currently, Huawei offers a comprehensive portfolio of IoT solutions. In addition to traditional network equipment, Huawei also offers a unified business management platform and communication chipsets to provide carriers with effective support for their commercial deployment of NB-IoT solutions.
“IoT applications represent powerful opportunities to transform the way businesses and cities connect to create vast social and economic benefits. However capturing the full potential of NB-IoT applications such as smart metering and smart parking requires innovation and collaboration around NB-IoT to ensure secure, stable and robust connectivity,” said Paul Scanlan, President of Business & Network Consulting, Huawei. “Together with our partners, Huawei is applying groundbreaking NB-IoT innovation to solve core challenges around IoT applications and smart cities. As a platinum sponsor of M2M Congress, we believe this is an important forum bringing together industry experts to discuss innovation and best practices for sustainable development of NB-IoT technology to enable IoT applications and smart cities and ultimately to build a better connected world.”
Vodafone, Huawei and u-blox have successfully conducted commercial trial of pre-standard NB-IoT technology. According to the plan, by successfully integrating the technology into the operator’s existing mobile network in Spain , the carrier would be able to offer long-distance remote metering services to its users in the future.
Huawei’s chipset and software supported the successful trial of the pre-NB IoT technology which realized narrow band communications in carrier frequency. The deployment of NB-IoT in licensed cellular spectrum signifies that it is secure and less susceptible to interference. The system promises to provide a better guarantee of service too. Further trials and large-scale commercial deployments are planned by the both partners.
Moving forward, Huawei will continue to invest in innovation and is committed to building a robust, open ecosystem to drive NB-IoT technology innovation and commercialization. Together with its strategic partnership, Vodafone and Huawei will lead the development of NB-IoT connectivity across a number of different verticals including utilities, agriculture, manufacturing, wearables and transport to create a better connected world.
