The GSMA Feb 21 announced that Mobile IoT or Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) networks are now globally available in licensed spectrum in 49 markets 1 around the world following 93 launches by 50 different mobile operators across both LTE-M and NB-IoT. Coverage is now expected to reach approximately 93% of the world's largest IoT markets by Q2 2019 2. According to GSMA Intelligence forecasts, by 2025 there will be 3.5 billion cellular IoT connections, including 1.9 billion licensed LPWA connections 3.
"The speed with which these networks have been standardized and deployed around the world is staggering. They are now available in every major IoT market encouraging the development of innovative new products and services across a wide range of sectors," commented Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA. "The market clearly sees the benefit of solutions in licensed spectrum that offer flexibility, adaptability, security and lower cost. They are also future proofed for the 5G era and will support and co-exist with other 5G technologies."
To date there have been 68 NB-IoT launches in 45 markets and 25 launches of LTE-M networks in 19 markets. This is supported by a network of 47 Open Labs worldwide enabling organisations to test their products and services prior to launch. Verizon and Spark also launched LTE-M in North America and New Zealand respectively, while STC launched NB-IoT in Saudi Arabia and Telefonica launhed LTE-M in Argentina.
The GSMA Mobile IoT Innovators community has also reached 2,100 developers from more than 1,300 companies around the world. The official community is an ecosystem that unites operators, vendors, manufacturers and developers around LPWA technologies in licensed spectrum and supports the development and creation of innovative new products and services that utilize these technologies.
Backed by over 100 mobile operators and vendors, the GSMA's Mobile IoT Initiative 4 has helped to align the mobile industry behind licensed, standardized and complementary Low Power, Wide Area (LPWA) technologies called LTE-M and NB-IoT. These Mobile IoT networks support mass-market IoT applications such as smart meters, environmental sensors and consumer electronics, that are low cost, use low data rates, require long battery lives and often operate in remote locations. They are designed to support mass-market IoT applications across a wide variety of applications such as industrial asset tracking, safety monitoring, water and gas metering, smart grids, city parking, vending machines and city lighting.
The GSMA also recently launched the GSMA APAC IoT Partnership programme to help mobile operators and partners in the Asia-Pacific region to accelerate the adoption of IoT by facilitating the sharing of innovation and ideas, promoting regional leadership and providing access to open labs to test new use cases.