Arab telco du, working with Nokia, Affirmed Networks and MediaTek, has announced the launch of a narrowband internet of things network in the United Arab Emirates based on the latest 3GPP Release 14 standard, du said in a statement.
The carrier said that the new NB-IoT network will enable the provision of a number of smart city applications ranging from smart metering, smart parking, trackers and smart health, to industrial and agriculture use cases.
As part of the collaboration, du, Nokia, Affirmed Networks and MediaTek recently successfully demonstrated an electricity and water smart metering use case.
“The development of IoT is critical to the rollout of 5G. Unlike the previous generation Release 13 NB-IoT, the launch of the first 3GPP Release 14 NB-IoT network opens up possibilities of newer implementations due to the higher throughput, lower latency and Mobility enhancements. We are excited to be a step closer to realise the vision of the UAE leadership to build the smartest city in the world and achieve digital transformation,” said Saleem Alblooshi, chief infrastructure officer for Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company.
“We are thrilled to have partnered with du to launch the new NB-IoT services and contribute to build smart cities in the UAE that can become global role models,” said Bernard Najm, head of the Middle East market unit at Nokia. “This launch marks a milestone in the UAE in creating a cost-efficient IoT ecosystem with the country’s LTE asset, connecting numerous devices. It allows the operator to introduce innovative services in various verticals such as energy, water, home appliances, transport, healthcare, and manufacturing, creating revenue opportunities as well as comfort in lifestyle.”
For this project, MediaTek used an NB-IoT Release 14-enabled system-on-a-chip (SoC) which enables extended coverage for applications, such as smart trackers, wearables, IoT security, smart metering and other industrial applications. The MediaTek chip’s highly integrated design incorporated an NB-IoT modem, antenna RF and base-band analogue front-end among many other components, in order to simplify the product design process for partners. Its miniscule package size and low pin-count yields cost and size effective designs for many applications, the company said.
