Deutsche Telekom offers progress report on NB-IoT rollout

Deutsche Telekom’s Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) network is now live in eight countries in Europe, as well as in the US.

Deutsche Telekom has said that its NB-IoT network is now live across eight European markets as well as the US. The company also announced that it plans to press ahead with completing the nationwide rollout of its low-power machine network in the US by mid-year and in many of its European markets by the end of 2018.

The German telco said a key focus of the NB-IoT deployment is the development and implementation of smart city solutions, as this type of connectivity is ideally suited for many pioneering applications in this sector based on smart sensors, including lighting, public transport and waste management, it added.

So far, Deutsche Telekom has rolled out its NB-IoT sensor network to around 600 towns and cities across Germany since it was launched in June 2017, with more than 200 companies now trailing the technology already via commercially available test packages.

Step by step

The rollout in the Netherlands was completed in May 2017 and Deutsche Telekom has brought the technology to six further European markets by the end of 2017. In Austria, Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Mobile has become the first operator to roll out NB-IoT commercially in that country, with the city of St Pölten already fully covered and nationwide rollout of NB-IoT to be completed by autumn of 2018.

In Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Greece, NB-IoT networks are live already across many cities with nationwide coverage expected in many countries by the end of 2018 as well.

“Deutsche Telekom’s aim is to deliver this exciting technology across Europe and the US as quickly as possible, both by making the NB-IoT sensor network available everywhere as well as actively driving the development of innovative NB-IoT solutions,” said Ingo Hofacker, head of IoT business at Deutsche Telekom.

“The extensive availability of NB-IoT network coverage in 2018 beyond the initial city-led pilots we have seen last year lays the ground for NB-IoT solutions to be deployed not only locally, but also nationally and across borders.”

R&D on NB-IoT

In addition, the telco said it is also pushing forward the NB-IoT ecosystem through various joint research and development facilities. Its innovation program WARP NB-IoT, powered by its incubator hub:raum, was established after the successful completion of the NB-IoT Prototyping Hub that took place last summer.

Start-ups are offered access to cutting-edge technology and technical support in the WARP NB-IoT Prototyping Lab, helping them to accelerate product development, prototyping and market implementation.

Deutsche Telekom has also established a European Smart Solutions Center (ESC), based in Budapest. The ESC will initially focus on the development and implementation of NB-IoT-based smart city solutions in Europe.

Finally, the recent launch of the Telekom Open IoT Labs together with the Fraunhofer-Institute for Material Flow and Logistics will see Fraunhofer scientists and Deutsche Telekom IoT experts collaborate on NB-IoT projects, including the development and testing of systems aimed at the manufacturing, logistics and aviation industries. The lab will also be open to external companies seeking to develop application-specific NB-IoT prototypes.