Private Narrowband IoT Market

Private narrowband IoT is a type of low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technology. LPWAN allows long range communication at low bit rate and is, therefore, regarded as one of the key technology choices for building IoT networks across the globe. These wireless technologies can be integrated into vehicles, streetlights, home appliances, manufacturing equipment, and even wearable devices. LPWAN offers a combination of long range, low power consumption, and secure data transmission, which makes it one of the preferred network technologies. Well-established technology providers like NWave Technologies, Qualcomm Inc., Cisco Systems, AT&T Inc., and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd among others offer various LPWAN technologies to a number of clients worldwide. With the explosive growth in the number of IoT devices, the need for low-power, cost-efficient, and optimized data transmission technology is arising which has led to an increase in demand for private narrowband IoT technology for a number of applications.

LPWAN was developed in the year 2011 as an alternative to other network technologies offering IoT connectivity. Since then, the technology has undergone several developments. Today, the application scope of LPWAN is widespread; it is well suited for environmental monitoring, logistic tracking, and animal and crop monitoring, that require a number of independent devices such as sensors to send occasional status updates. It is also being used to remotely activate devices such as air conditioners, sprinklers, and lights. Some of the key industry verticals contributing to the demand for LPWAN are utilities, agriculture, manufacturing, transportation & logistics among others. The table below depicts the key applications across all these industry verticals.

TABLE 1 Industry-Wise Application of LPWAN Technologies

Industry

Application

Utilities

· Gas Metering

· Water Metering

· Water distribution network Monitoring

Smart Building

· Controlling HVAC System

· Controlling Alarm system and Actuators

Agriculture

· Fishing and Land Monitoring; Livestock Tracking

· Environmental Monitoring including pollution, noise health hazard etc.

Smart City

· Controlling smart light

· Smart waste

· Parking

Consumer Goods

· Wearables

· Controlling White goods appliances

· People tracking

Industry

· Asset Tracking

· Oil & Gas and energy infrastructure monitoring

Transportation & Logistics

· Location and status update

· Goods tracking

Source: GSMA, MRFR Analysis

Since, private NB-IoT is one of many technologies LPWAN offers, with the growth of LPWAN deployment, private NB-IoT deployment is also increasing which is expected to drive the overall private NB-IoT market. According to the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), as of March 2019 there were 102 operators in 52 countries that have now either deployed or launched at least one of the NB-IoT or LTE-M technologies. The association also states that approximately 149 operators in 69 countries are extensively investing in one or both network technologies. Out of these, 22 countries have deployed NB-IoT and LTE-M networks. Some of the key countries that have deployed NB-IoT network includes the US, Canada, Germany, France, India, Australia, China, Japan among others. A number of operators have rolled out NB-IoT networks for commercial deployment due to its increasing demand across the globe. The table below depicts country-wise mobile NB-IoT commercial networks (as of September 2019). The trend of growing investment in NB-IoT technology due to increasing demand for LPWAN technology is, therefore, driving the overall private NB-IoT market.

FIGURE 1 lAUNCH OF Key Mobile NB-IoT Commercial Networks, aS OF sEPTEMBER, 2019

Name of Operator

Country/Region

3

· Hong Kong

· SAR China

A1 Telekom

· Austria

· Croatia

Advanced info service Plc. (AIS)

· Thailand

Asia Pacific Broadband Telecom Co., Ltd.

· Taiwan, Province of China

Altice

· Portugal

AT&T

· Mexico

· United States

BASE (Telenet)

· Belgium

China Mobile Limited.

· Hong Kong,

· SAR China

· China

China Unicom, Inc.

· China

Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd

· Taiwan

Dialog Axiata PLC.

· Sri Lanka

DNA Plc

· Finland

EITC

· UAE

Elisa

· Finland

Etisalat

· UAE

FarEasTone Telecommunications

· Taiwan, Province of China

Grameenphone (Telenor)

· Bangladesh

KT Corporation

· South Korea

Kyivstar JSC.

· Ukraine

LG Uplus Cor

· South Korea

Vodafone

· Australia

· Czech Republic

· Germany

· Greece

· Hungary

· Ireland

· Italy

· Malta

· New Zealand

· Portugal

· Spain

· South Africa

· The Netherlands

· Turkey

· United Kingdom

· Ukraine

Source: GSMA,

Private NB-IoT has numerous applications in smart city and smart building markets. The network can be used for providing connectivity solutions in smart buildings for controlling smart meters, HVAC systems, lighting systems, and security systems. Similarly, private NB-IoT can facilitate networking for smart cities by providing connectivity solutions for controlling home appliances, traffic lighting, and HVAC systems among others. As there has been significant growth in smart building and smart city development, solution and network providers operating in the private NB-IoT market have the opportunity to offer efficient and effective NB-IoT network solutions to the developers.

The smart city market is growing significantly due to the advent of urbanization. According to MRFR analysis, the global smart city market is expected reach USD 1,933.01 billion by the end of 2022, creating a number of growth opportunities for NB-IoT solution providers to offer IoT connectivity services. Various smart city projects are under development across the globe. For instance, in India, the Central government launched 100 smart city missions in the year 2015. These smart city projects are still under development. Of 5,151 projects initially proposed, only 3,629 have been actively pursued as of July 2019. Similarly, in Europe, with the help of the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC), the region aims to have 300 smart cities by the end of 2019. These projects around the globe will, therefore, provide various opportunities for NB-IoT solution providers to maximize their revenue and strengthen their position in the market.

Apart from NB-IoT technology, other LPWAN technologies and standards include LTE-M, LoRaWAN, SigFox, Symphony Link, Weightless, and Weightless-P. Some of these technologies are open source while some of them are proprietary LPWAN technologies. These technologies are competing with NB-IoT in terms of the use case and deployment. One of the key LPWAN technologies that are highly competitive to NB-IoT is Long Term Evolution for Machine (LTE-M). This technology offers higher data rate which is used for high-performance applications in logistics, healthcare, and automotive industries. LTE-M technology is also being significantly used for mission-critical applications. It supports devices that need to communicate in real-time, for instance, for voice-based emergency data and precision tracking data. Also, LTE-M allows more data throughput in comparison to NB-IoT, making it more popular across various industry verticals. Since LTE-M can support almost all the use cases that NB-IoT can support, the probability of substitution increases significantly. LTE-M is also being commercially deployed by many operators in various region/countries. Operators like Advanced Info Service Plc., Bell Canada, Telefonica, Vodafone have deployed LTE-M in Thailand, Canada, Argentina, and New Zealand respectively. Other technologies like LoRaWAN, SigFox, Symphony Link, Weightless and Weightless-P are also competitive with several benefits. For instance, LoRaWAN, an open standard networking layer governed by LoRa Alliance, facilitates IoT connectivity and communication over long distance with minimal battery usage. Symphony Link is a proprietary technology that enables secured connectivity of IoT devices with the cloud. Weightless and Weightless-P introduced by Weightless SIG is an open standard that operates in Sub-1 GHz unlicensed spectrum. It also offers efficient connectivity for IoT devices. All these are low-power wide-area network technologies competing based on reliability, security, speed, and coverage. The competition among these technologies is expected to relatively restrict the overall growth of private NB-IoT market.

Private NB-IoT deployment or installation is a complex issue that requires a set of parameters to abide by while deploying the technology. It, therefore, poses various challenges for both the mobile network operators (MNOs) and application service providers to efficiently set-up and configure key NB-IoT features and spectrum bands. GSMA NB-IoT Forum, along with its members, has developed certain guidelines for efficient deployment of NB-IoT solution. The guideline offers the minimum requirement to achieve a balance of roaming services continuity and power optimization. MNOs offering NB-IoT services must ensure that devices and end-to-end services from various providers are efficiently connected to the NB-IoT system. MNOs also need to make sure that data transport capability and connection modes are well understood. High-level coordination is required to help ensure that NB-IoT RAN technology and devices meet the desired requirement. For instance, many MNOs will limit the number of spectrum bands that will be supported by the devices in order to lower the overall cost of infrastructure. This means that customers must be aware of the bands used to deploy NB-IoT by MNOs in the area where they intend to operate. Some of the key examples that will impact the NB-IoT device performance are listed below:

· If any NB-IoT feature is not enabled, there could be a negative implication on end-to-end security

· Roaming devices are required to be certified for all the spectrum bands

· If power save mode (PSM) and extended discontinuous reception (eDRX) timers are set differently in different networks and devices, and the service performance could change, impacting the battery life

Therefore, installation/deployment of private NB-IoT is a challenge; however with effective guidelines being proposed by GSMA, service providers and MNOs can effectively reduce this challenge by abiding by the guidelines.