Germany-based IoT provider 1NCE has said it has doubled its NB-IoT footprint with expansion into Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, the Slovak Republic, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States. The company claimed it has the “world’s largest NB-IoT coverage map, available at a single price worldwide”.
Its new roaming agreements are in addition to existing NB-IoT-based cellular low-power wide-area (LPWA) coverage in Austria, China, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Puerto Rico, the Slovak Republic, Spain, the UK, and the US Virgin Islands. Nominally, its NB-IoT map extends to 21 countries.
1NCE has also extended its 2G, 3G, and 4G coverage to more than 20 new global destinations, which lifts the company’s total cellular IoT coverage footprint to 140 countries, it said. New destinations for standard cellular IoT includeAlgeria, Andorra, Bahrain, Benin, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, Gabon, Lebanon, Mauritius, Mozambique, New Caledonia, Suriname, Tajikistan, Togo, and Uruguay, among others.
Ivo Rook (pictured), chief operating officer at 1NCE, said: “The demand for cross-border availability of low power networks is increasing as more companies and cities realize the power that IoT-driven intelligence can have in creating a strong impact in their field. Network availability without the hassle of multiple vendors is critical for large scale, multinational IoT deployments in every industry. Our strong focus on expanding the availability of NB-IoT and LTE-M for 1NCE’s customers is what will unlock IoT to customers who have real power to change the world for the better.”
1NCE is offering a 10-for-10 deal on global LPWA IoT connectivity on a multi-mode cellular SIM card, at €10 for 10 years, for 500 MB of data and 250 text messages. It claims around 8,500 customers and 10 million managed connections. It is offering enterprise customers up to 100 free SIM cards with 12 months of flare-rate IoT connectivity, covering all its cellular roaming agreements.
It noted most IoT projects (80 percent, say analysts) do not need broadband cellular connectivity, but most do require multinational deployments. It stated: “Few mobile network operators have the capability to meet cross-border demands.”
