China Unicom plans to upgrade and expand infrastructure across the city and deploy IoT platform
China Unicom announced an investment program to expand and upgrade its telecommunications infrastructure in Shanghai, local press reported. The initiative also stipulates the development of an “Internet of Things” platform and data centers in the city.
China Unicom recently signed an agreement with the Shanghai municipal government to expand and upgrade its fixed optical network and wireless infrastructure in the city. The five-year agreement is valued at 14 billion yuan ($2.15 billion).
The agreement calls for the deployment of 10-gigabit per second passive optical technology, which is expected to cover 6 million residences in with fiber-to-the-home capabilities by 2018, and 7 million residences by 2020.
The initiative, which seeks to turn Shanghai into a smart city, also includes the deployment of a citywide narrowband IoT platform for applications such as intelligent parking and environmental monitoring. The operator said the NB-IoT network is expected to be fully completed in 2017, with the deployment of 3,000 network base stations across the city.
China Unicom also plans to build new data centers and big data infrastructure to provide cloud-based applications and services.
The country’s second largest mobile operator also announced plans to deploy triband carrier aggregation on its LTE network to boost network speeds from 150 megabits per second up to 500 Mbps by 2018, and on to one gigabit per second by 2020. China Unicom said it expects to reach citywide voice-over-LTE coverage – including high-definition audio and video calls – and voice-over-Wi-Fi services by the end of this year.
SK Telecom, Telkom Indonesia to collaborate on IoT, smart products
In other APAC news, SK Telecom signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesian telecoms operator Telkom to cooperate in new business areas including IoT, media and smart products. Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will work together to develop new business opportunities in the areas of smart city and IoT services.
SK Telecom plans to extends its ThingPlug IoT platform to Telkom and share its knowhow in deployment and operation of LoRa networks with the aim to jointly develop IoT technologies and services tailored to the Indonesian market. The MoU also stipulates the two telcos will discuss the idea of building a joint venture for their IoT business within the next two years.
