Airtel said its NB-IoT platform is scalable to 5G
Indian carrier Bharti Airtel announced its partnership with Secure Meters for the deployment of NB-IoT services that will power 1.3 million homes in Bihar state through a smart meter solution.
Bharti Airtel noted that this deployment will be India’s first NB-IoT solution on a narrow band with a fall-back option that will work on 2G and 4G and ensure real-time connectivity and uninterrupted transfer of critical data.
NB-IoT is a low-power, wide area, radio network technology developed by 3GPP which enables a wide variety of IoT devices and services including smart meters.
Ajay Chitkara, director and CEO of Airtel Business, said: “IoT is one of the fastest-growing business segments for Airtel Business. This venture into NB-IoT strengthens our credentials as the largest cellular IoT player in the country and places us firmly as a partner of choice for utilities looking to invest in smart meters. We look forward to being an active player in India’s energy transition.”
“We are thrilled to have partnered with Airtel for the implementation of NB-IoT services in our smart meter rollout in North Bihar. With Airtel’s support, we were able to seamlessly connect and monitor our meters, resulting in greater efficiency and cost savings for our customers in North Bihar,” said Ananya Singhal, managing director at Secure Meters.
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Airtel said its NB-IoT platform is scalable to 5G. Airtel’s NB-IoT proposition also includes its advanced IoT platform, call the Airtel IoT Hub, which has been customized to suit the needs of advance metering infrastructure service providers. Other functionalities include customer life cycle management and advanced analytics tools like diagnostics, live sessions check and real-time data usage among others.
Airtel said its network is ready for pan-India NB-IoT deployment.
Bharti Airtel said its Airtel 5G Plus service is available to customers in over 500 cities in the country. Airtel also said it is working towards offering nationwide coverage and expects to cover every town and key rural area with 5G by the end of March 2024.
In October 2022, Bharti Airtel initially aunched 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi.
The carrier is currently using equipment from Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung to provide 5G services. The Indian operator had secured a total of 19,800 megahertz of spectrum in the 900 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz, 3.3 GHz and 26 GHz bands in a recent auction carried out by the Indian government.