Trails are also being carried out in Hangzhou, Shanghai and Fuzhou provinces
Chinese vendors ZTE and China Mobile have announced they have completed the operators’ first narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) field test in Guangzhou.
The vendors said that the trial involved the validation of core network, service, terminals and wireless equipment for NB-IoT with both single mode and multi-mode networking.
ZTE also said that the test verified the setup, upgrade, single mode networking, multimode networking and networking performance of core network, service, terminals and wireless equipment concerned with users’ data rate, delay, coverage enhancement.
In the field test, all devices were provided by ZTE, including virtual CN, PaaS aspects, 2T4R base stations on the wireless side, as well as terminals using a ZTE self-developed chip.
China Mobile is currently conducting NB-IoT trials in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Fuzhou provinces, and is working with one vendor in each of these provinces in order to comprehensively study and verify different NB-IoT features.
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Guangdong Mobile’s field test is the largest-scale among the four provinces with nearly 200 sites constructed. The Chinese vendor said this trial was also the only field test to accomplish specified test items dedicated to the NB-IoT protocol, including all combinations of uplink channels and services specified in NB-IoT protocol standards.
The trial also exclusively supported the sub-carrier interval of 3.75KHz and 15KHz simultaneously, marking the world’s first 3.75KHz test, the company said.
In November 2016, together with China Mobile’s Zhejiang Branch, ZTE showcased an end-to-end smart water monitoring and smart parking services by commissioning NB-IoT based on existing wireless devices during the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen.
ZTE said that its NB-IoT applications have already expanded to smart parking, smart street lamp, smart meter reading, water monitoring, asset monitoring and smart locking, involving multiple vertical industries like smart cities and smart homes.