Finnish operator DNA has extended coverage of its NB-IoT network to cover 85 percent of the country’s population.
The network has been upgraded to cover around half of the southern, western and central parts of the country.
DNA launched the network in the spring of this year, initially being used to measure air quality in a retail store in Tampere.
It said the trials found NB-IoT to cost-efficiently connect a broad range of devices to a network, adding: “More diverse sensors and devices in increasingly challenging locations can be connected to network and thereby assist in the monitoring of, for instance, air quality, sewer networks, or the storage percentage of warehouses.”
DNA said the network upgrades meant it could offer the technology to a wider range of companies and set up connectivity at short notice.
Jarkko Laari, Director, Radio Networks at DNA, said: “We are expanding the NB-IoT service area based on customer needs. Demand is increasing. The Internet of Things sets new kinds of challenges for the use of network resources, as the number of connected devices will multiply. The NB-IoT contributes to the answer to these challenges.”
Figures from Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report, which was published this morning, revealed there will be half a billion cellular IoT devices, both NB-IoT and LTE-M, by the end of this year across 20 commercial networks.
By 2023, this figure will almost quadruple to hit 1.8 billion, when it will account for 75 percent of the wide-area network market.