Belgian operator Proximus will trial narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) in 2017, with a view to running LoRA and NB-IoT networks in tandem to serve distinct elements of the Internet of Things market.
Vincent Hebbelynck, Head of Incubation and Corporate Venturing at Proximus, told Mobile Europe’s IoT Conference 2016 yesterday there remains significant questions around the viability of NB-IoT, but said Proximus expected to make it a central part of its IoT play alongside LoRa, starting next year.
Hebbelynck said: “There is overlap between the two technologies, but they are evolving. A few months ago there was a lot of talk about competition between them, but now people increasingly realise there’s a place for both.”
He suggested NB-IoT, using licensed spectrum, is more suitable to nationwide public deployments, such as with electricity meters, but said LoRa, in unlicensed spectrum, retains a cost advantage, especially as NB-IoT has been pegged for multiple spectrum bands.
“We are pretty convinced it will be a big success, but there are some hurdles still,” said Hebbelynck.
“We are eager to test NB-IoT, and to see how the ecosystem evolves. We still have questions – about how that ecosystem develops, and about such things as roaming. Because if you want to keep the cost of devices very low, you don’t want them having to work in multiple frequency bands.”
Proximus’ national LoRa rollout, which started in August 2015, has reached 25 percent national coverage, as well as 50 percent population coverage. It covers urban centres, logstics areas, harbours, and airports.
It will achieve total national coverage by the year-end, with 500 more antennas deployed, said Hebbelynck, and Proximus will put focus in 2017 on network densification to achieve superior indoor and deep-indoor coverage, as well as to bring greater precision to location-based IoT services.
Proximus will also continue to stimulate the LoRa ecosystem, offering developers assistance with prototyping their products via its EnCo.io platform, as well as scaling and marketing them, said Hebbelynck.
Its LoRa use cases have so far focused on waste management for the public sector, and fuel management for private homes. Hebbelynck said Proximus is looking to develop LoRa-based IoT applications for energy, buildings, industry, parking, healthcare, utilities, and construction in 2017.
“The fact LoRa uses unlicensed spectrum, and cost and power consumption will remain much lower, even if it also has slightly lower data rates, means it may well be pushed towards very different use cases,” said Hebbelynck.
He suggested operators who choose to back a single low-power wide-area technology will remove themselves from a part of the IoT market. “IoT is not just a market for telcos. Making choice between these technologies will take part of market away. A presence in the unlicensed market opens that other part up,” he said.