AT&T Launches First North American LTE-M Site to Grow IoT

According to a recent release, AT&T has switched on North America’s first LTE-M commercial site, in San Ramon, California, kicking off a growth pattern that will enable the evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) for years. AT&T plans to make the technology widely available across its commercial network throughout 2017.

LTE-M is designed to offer a combination of enhanced coverage and longer battery life with carrier-grade security for a new generation of industries and applications. It will connect a wide variety of IoT solutions challenged by existing network technology. These include smart utility meters, asset monitoring, vending machines, alarm systems, fleet, heavy equipment, mHealth and wearables.

“We've joined with Altair, Ericsson and technology leaders from across the ecosystem to launch the first LTE-M enabled commercial site in North America,” said Chris Penrose, president, Internet of Things Solutions, AT&T. “Innovations like LTE-M will bring IoT to more end points than ever before. It's part of our strategy to offer the widest range of IoT network options to our customers.”

Enterprise customers and technology leaders are collaborating on the LTE-M pilot. Some of the participants thus far announced include: Badger Meter, CalAmp, Capstone Metering, PepsiCo, and Samsung.

The pilot will also include solutions from a robust contingent of technology providers:  Altair, Ericsson, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Sierra Wireless, Telit, u-blox, Wistron NeWeb Corp. (WNC), and Xirgo Technologies.  The technology is expected to be available to customers outside of the pilot starting in 2017.

This is likely only the first of many such networks going live from the major carriers all over the continent and the globe. The essential question of which protocol will gain prominence in the standards wars is still not getting closer to an answer, however.

I find that last fact a bit frustrating.