Telekom Austria Group (TAG) is the latest operator to throw its weight behind NB-IoT and will work with Nokia to roll out the technology when it is formally launched.
TAG held a demonstration of the technology at this week’s M2M/IoT Central and Eastern Europe forum in Vienna.
The operator said its network will only require a software upgrade to enable solutions. It added that the global ecosystem of open standards and IoT players would result in a long term life for the technology, as well as an “excellent cost structure”.
Bernd Liebscher, Managing Director of Telekom Austria Group M2M, said: “The introduction of NB-IoT is the next logical step in our M2M strategy to make the best technology and know-how on the market available to our customers and partners. We are delighted that with Nokia we have found such a highly-qualified partner for this technological step that will enable us to serve the fast-growing IoT market.”
Peter Wukowits, Country Senior Officer Austria and Head of Central Europe, Nokia, added: “IoT devices could make up to 6.8 trillion daily connection requests by 2020. Our joint demonstration of NB-IoT clearly shows the potential of this technology for managing this immense volume of connections.”
TAG already offers enterprises access to an LTE Category One M2M network through its SIMplify platform. It launched a dedicated M2M business in 2011.
The first commercial networks boasting NB-IoT technology are expected to be launched next year. Vodafone said this month it expects it to be its fastest ever deployed technology.