Spurring adoption of NB-IoT: notes from China

At Mobile World Congress Shanghai (MWCS) this year, IoT solutions – and NB-IoT in particular – were on full display. Among all the demos and presentations, there were some key announcements and proof points that the market is shifting the dial in terms of spurring adoption. However, key barriers remain to be addressed on the way to the 1.9 billion licensed LPWA connections we forecast by 2025. With licensed LPWA addressing the needs of low-cost and low-data IoT applications traditionally served by 2G networks and modules, cost and coverage are essential. MWCS provided a much-needed healthcheck on developments surrounding this new ecosystem.