Twilio teams up with T-Mobile US on NB-IoT platform

Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) market set to grow exponentially in next 5 years

NEWSBYTE Cloud platform as a service (PaaS) provider Twilio has partnered with T-Mobile US in a deal that will see the former roll out a developers’ platform for T-Mobile’s Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) network.

The partnership was announced at Twilio’s Signal 2019 customer and developers’ conference in San Francisco. It aims to create apps for NB-IoT that will draw less power, extend battery life, and save users money.

The platform comprises three parts. The first consists of narrowband SIMs to help IoT developers get up to speed with self-service onboarding. The SIMs come with no contracts and two-day shipping.

The second is Twilio’s Narrowband IoT Developer Kit. This includes an Arduino-based development board, Grove sensors (chosen for low-power, wide-area solutions), and the u-blog LTE Cat NB1 SARA-N410 hardware module, which has been certified for use with T-Mobile’s Narrowband IoT network.

The third component is Twilio’s Breakout software developer’s kit (SDK). This aims to decrease the complexity of hardware and improve the heterogeneity of different networks, allowing developers to focus on creating narrowband IoT device deployments.

The Breakout SDK handles tasks such as network registration and intelligently optimises communication between devices and cloud services – based on network capability requirements across protocols such as IP, Non-IP and SMS.

Twilio’s Narrowband Developer Platform will be available for beta access in early 2019, with prices starting at $2 a month for a developer plan, $10 a year (or $5 a year at scale) for the production annual plan, and $8 a year (or $4 a year at scale) for the production five-year plan.

NB-IoT opportunity

“The introduction of T-Mobile’s Narrowband IoT network provides a tremendous opportunity for developers who are innovating and building new categories of devices that don’t exist today,” said Chetan Chaudhary, general manager and vice president of IoT at Twilio.

Tom Rebbeck, research director of Enterprise and IoT at research firm Analysys Mason, said that his company sees Twilio as part of a new wave of IoT connectivity providers that is disrupting the market by reducing friction for developers.

“We think its offer is especially well suited to the narrowband market, where operational costs need to be kept extremely low,” he said.

Internet of Business says

The last point is critical for the successful expansion of IoT networks: speed, low power usage, and low costs will be essential to fuel the spread of useful services.

With Intel announcing a partnership last week with fellow chipmaker Arm, to bring together IoT management and operations for the two chip families around a shared set of standards, the signs are that these types of deals are both essential and spreading fast in the industry.

Rene Millman: Rene Millman is a freelance writer and broadcaster who covers IoT, mobile technology, cloud, and infrastructure. In the past, he has also worked as an analyst for both Gartner and IDC. He has made numerous television appearances discussing the technology trends and companies that shape our lives.
Related Post