Both Deutsche Telekom and Huawei separately announced this week that they’re using Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) to advance their Internet of Things (IoT) goals.
NB-IoT is a low-power wide-area (LPWA) technology that runs on existing operator networks in licensed spectrum to support a massive number of IoT devices. It is especially optimized for sensors with low bandwidth requirements up to a few kilobits per second.
NB-IoT enables deep indoor penetration, low power consumption, and a battery life of up to 10 years.
Deutsche Telekom’s announcement included the establishment of an NB-IoT Prototyping Hub. It will provide a venue to bring the carrier’s business customers together with its own IoT developers.
DT is also working within the 3GPP and GSMA to promote global standardization of NB-IoT.
Huawei LiteOS
Today, Huawei announced an NB-IoT product suite that focuses on operators’ IoT infrastructure. It includes Huawei’s LiteOS operating system and NB-IoT chipset. It also includes the company’s eNodeB base stations, which can evolve to NB-IoT; its IoT packet core; and a cloud-based IoT connection management platform.
The IoT packet core is based on a network functions virtualization (NFV) cloud architecture. LiteOS provides protocol stacks with low-power consumption, and it can also work with the NB-IoT chips and IoT platforms of third parties.
Huawei plans to conduct a large commercial trial of its NB-IoT product suite in the fourth quarter of this year and release it for commercial use in late December.
Also later in 2016, Huawei says it will launch SoftRadio, a software suite that allows developers to access NB-IoT labs via the Internet for remote innovation and commissioning.
