Skip to main content

Will NB-IoT Survive?

Back in March this year, NTT Docomo announced that they are switching off their NB-IoT network due to not enough demand but will continue to support LTE-M and Cat 1.


This news have started a lot of discussions, as you would expect, about the future of NB-IoT. From the standards point of view, IoT is going ahead full steam with both LTE-M and NB-IoT having been enhanced for 5G in Release-16 to support massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC). This slide from Qualcomm illustrates it well

A recent article from Mobile World Live had a heading, "China Mobile migrates IoT connections off 2G". While reading the article, you would get a feeling that China Mobile will stop supporting the 2G IoT (more like M2M) devices. But again this might not be that straightforward as I explain in this tweet.


China Mobile had 884 million IoT customers at the end of 2019. According to CounterPointTR, some 95 million were on NB-IoT so nearly 750 million+ will be on GSM / 2G. It would take a very long time to migrate these to NB-IoT.


As Matt Hatton from Transforma Insights points out, the technology is good enough but needs a long term business case to be viable.


Tom Rebbeck from Analysys Mason highlights similar points. It is too early to call it quits. Docomo had their reasons for closing down their NB-IoT networks but there are many other operators that still support the technology wholeheartedly and most of them will try their best to make it a success.

Finally, here is another tweet by Tom, highlighting the market for IoT operators. You can also get a report here.


Related Posts:
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Laser Inter-Satellite Links (LISLs) in a Starlink Constellation

When we first talked about Starlink back in 2019 , we saw in the video that the concept involved laser communication to communicate between the satellites. While the initially launched satellites did not have the laser communication mechanism built in, it looks like they are being added to the newer ones.  A report from Fast Company in late 2021 said: One of the next big upgrades in telecom will involve satellites firing lasers at each other—to beam data, not blow stuff up. The upside of replacing traditional radio-frequency communication with lasers, that encode data as pulses of light, can be much like that of deploying fiber-optic cable for terrestrial broadband: much faster speeds and much lower latency. “Laser links in orbit can reduce long-distance latency by as much as 50%, due to higher speed of light in vacuum & shorter path than undersea fiber,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted in July about the upgrade now beginning for that firm’s Starlink satellite constellation. The
1 comment
Read more

IEEE 802.11bn Ultra High Reliability (UHR), a.k.a. Wi-Fi 8

Back in 2020 we looked at the introductory post of Wi-Fi 7 which was followed up by a more detailed post in Feb 2022. We are now following on with an introductory post on the next generation Wi-Fi.  A new paper on arXiv explores the journey towards IEEE 802.11bn Ultra High Reliability (UHR), the amendment that will form the basis of Wi-Fi 8. Quoting selected items from the paper  below: After providing an overview of the nearly completed Wi-Fi 7 standard, we present new use cases calling for further Wi-Fi evolution. We also outline current standardization, certification, and spectrum allocation activities, sharing updates from the newly formed UHR Study Group. We then introduce the disruptive new features envisioned for Wi-Fi 8 and discuss the associated research challenges. Among those, we focus on access point coordination and demonstrate that it could build upon 802.11be multi-link operation to make Ultra High Reliability a reality in Wi-Fi 8. The IEEE 802.11bn UHR: Whose Study Gro
Post a Comment
Read more

NTT Docomo's Disaster Countermeasures to Keep People Connected

Recently I blogged about Disaster Roaming in 3GPP Release-17. While this will take time to be implemented worldwide, it is already available in Japan, maybe not in the 3GPP standardised way. Similarly, back in 2011, I blogged about Earthquake and Tsunami Warning service (ETWS) from NTT Docomo's Journal, it was two days before the  2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami hit. Japan is no stranger to earthquakes, typhoons, and other natural disasters, which can have a devastating effect on infrastructure. To ensure that the mobile networks keep functioning, operators work extremely hard to ensure people remain connected one way or another. NTT Docomo has released a video detailing the countermeasures to keep everyone connected in case of emergencies. The following detail is provided with the video: DOCOMO's network is no exception, and our services could get cut off by a base station power outage, disconnected fiber-optic cable, or other malfunctions. DOCOMO established the three pr
Post a Comment
Read more