China Mobile plans to offer subsidies to IoT makers in order to foster the domestic IoT ecosystem
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, announced plans to invest approximately $300 million to subsidize IoT makers as part of a push to build one of the largest IoT networks in the world, Chinese press reported.
According to local press reports, nearly half of the planned investment will be used to finance companies making NB-IoT modules, while the rest will go to 4G IoT module makers, said Li Yue, president of China Mobile.
At the telco’s global partners’ conference in Guangzhou, China, the executive said that the subsidy should make IoT devices cheaper and will contribute with the increase in adoption rates.
China Mobile also confirmed plans to increase the country’s total IoT connections to over 320 million. It also aims to create the world’s largest NB-IoT network, covering 346 cities by the end of next year.
Li said that about 200 million IoT devices are currently connected to China Mobile’s service platform.
According to a previous study by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), revenue from IoT services in China has reached CNY 750 billion ($113.5 billion) by the end of 2015, and this figure is expected to double by 2020.
DNA expands NB-IoT footprint in Finland
In related news, Finnish telco DNA said it has expanded the coverage of its NB-IoT network in the Nordic country due to increasing demand from the corporate segment.
The operator’s network now reaches 85% of the population, covering half of southern, western, and central Finland.
“We are expanding the NB-IoT service area based on customer needs. Demand is increasing,” said Jarkko Laari, director of radio networks at DNA.
“The internet of things (IoT) sets new kinds of challenges for the use of network resources, as the number of connected devices will multiply. NB-IoT contributes to the answer to these challenges,” he said.
