Deutsche Telekom said 150 firms are currently testing NB-IoT technology
German telecommunications operator Deutsche Telekom said its NB-IoT network is already available at approximately 300 locations across Germany including Berlin/Potsdam, Cologne/Bonn, the Ruhr basin, Mannheim/Heidelberg and Stuttgart.
Deutsche Telekom plans to complete the network’s country-wide build by the end of next year. The European operator had initially kicked off its NB-IoT deployment in Germany in June.
More than 150 German companies are currently testing NB-IoT and are also working to develop applications using the technology. Deutsche Telekom said it provides support to these firms in many ways, in particular with development and test packs, SIM cards, NB-IoT connectivity and access to Deutsche Telekom’s Cloud of Things platform, an IoT platform which enables users to access device data, to set threshold values, for example, for alarms, perform device updates and control machines remotely.
The telco is also deploying NB-IoT networks in other European subsidiaries. Nationwide rollout in the Netherlands was completed in May and work continues on bringing the technology to Austria, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia.
Deutsche Telekom has also announced a new solution dubbed ‘Predictive Maintenance’, developed in partnership with automation specialist Eaton. The new product called “Predictive Maintenance”, allows users to set threshold values for almost any machine-supplied data. The solution then emits an individual, real-time alarm if the threshold is exceeded, the telco said.
Another solution developed by the two companies is SMART Monitoring. The solution is based on a neural network that recognizes and processes anomalies in machine data. The results make it possible to develop both predictive maintenance scenarios and to optimize machine operation.
Deutsche Telekom is working with numerous customers and partners on the implementation of real-live solutions using NB-IoT technology. In the smart parking space, Deutsche Telekom is collaborating in the launch of a smart parking service in the city of Hamburg. This smart parking service provides information about parking spaces to drivers in real time, digitizing up to 11,000 public and private spaces, including parking garages, with the support of Deutsche Telekom’s NB-IoT technology. Additional German cities including Darmstadt, Duisburg, Dortmund, Merzig and Moers will also introduce smart parking solutions.
Last week, the German operator announced the opening of a new lab which will focus on new NB-IoT developments. The new lab, which is located in the city of Dortmund, was established through a partnership between the telco and the Fraunhofer-Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML.
The goal of the new IoT lab is to optimize processes in the manufacturing, logistics and aviation sectors. The new facility will be open to other companies interested in collaborating with Deutsche Telekom and Fraunhofer to develop application-specific IoT prototypes.
In an initial phase of the collaboration process, the two partners will work jointly with interested companies to identify requirements for IoT solutions and to define these applications. Subsequently they will create them by developing and producing hardware, software and connectivity prototypes. Both partners said that efforts will be concentrated on producing solutions that can later be launched for mass-market use.
