Vodafone to Launch NB-IoT in Four European Markets

Vodafone has recently announced that it will launch NB-IoT, a low power network aimed at devices like smart meters, in four European markets. The markets are Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain, and the networks are expected to go live in the first quarter of 2017. Moreover, Vodafone in the announcement also committed to rolling out the network standard across all of its countries by 2020.

“By committing to this date, Vodafone has sent a strong message to its competitors, but also makes a strong commitment to other players in the value chain, from chipset designers to application developers,” said analyst Tom Rebbeck's, Research Director at Analysys Mason. “This announcement will encourage others to invest in NB-IoT, which will help all parts of the ecosystem.”

Rebbeck said he thinks that the company is being very aggressive about its time table, but that it could be achievable. Most of the rollouts will only require an over-the-air software upgrade, Vodaphone said, so no site visit should be required.

“Vodafone will want its partners, and not just its own networks, to launch NB-IoT,” said Rebbeck. “Part of Vodafone’s success in winning major IoT contracts using traditional cellular has been due to it offering seamless regional coverage. It will want to do the same with NB-IoT but this will depend on partner networks also investing in NB-IoT.”

In addition, LoRa could become a big factor in future rollouts, because this plan will put pressure on competitive technologies like LoRa, SIGFOX and Ingenu to execute as heavily and quickly, the analyst said. As evidence, he pointed to recent news from Softbank in Japan and Comcast in the US that they have plans for LoRa networks.

The race has been on for some time, but this could very well be the beginning of the tide turning, as big carrier players choose their paths for IoT connectivity and begin pushing out the little guys.