Interpretation of China's first LTE IoT multi-mode field test: Industry chain collaboration resolves the long-tail fragmentation problem

Recently, Qualcomm has cooperated with China Mobile Research Institute and Mobike to launch China's first eMTC/NB-IoT/GSM (LTE Cat M1/NB1 and E-GPRS) multi-mode field test.

The field test plan fully utilizes China Mobile's 2G/4G multi-mode network and applies Qualcomm's MDM9206 global multi-mode LTE IoT modem for IoT applications to Mobike's smart bike locks. Through the LTE connection and integrated global navigation satellite system (GNSS) positioning function brought by the IoT modem, Mobike users can more accurately identify available bikes, speed up the unlocking of smart locks, and continuously monitor and manage the bike status in real time.

In my opinion, this is a win-win solution that can be called a benchmark. For Mobike, it greatly reduces product complexity and cost and improves user experience; for China Mobile, it can give full play to the value of high-quality networks and accelerate the realization of the strategic concept of "big connection"; for Qualcomm, it can not only increase chip shipments and help revenue, but more importantly, it can enhance the confidence of the global IoT industry chain and avoid industry division caused by different technology route choices.

[[192259]]

Three-party cooperation

As leading manufacturers in their respective fields, the cooperation between the three companies has attracted widespread attention from the market. At the press conference, the executives of the three parties also expressed their expectations for the prospects of cooperation.

Huang Yuhong, deputy director of China Mobile Research Institute, pointed out that China Mobile has been actively promoting the development of cellular Internet of Things. The field test planned to be carried out with Qualcomm and Mobike will further expand the application of LTE IoT in the fields of smart shared bicycles and smart travel, and give full play to China Mobile's advantages in GSM network scale and eMTC/NB-IoT technology leadership.

Huang Yuhong, Vice President of China Mobile Research Institute

Xia Yiping, co-founder and CTO of Mobike, said that there are currently more than 4.5 million smart bikes operating on the Mobike platform, all equipped with exclusive self-developed smart locks. With the connectivity of Qualcomm's MDM9206 LTE modem and its integrated global navigation satellite system GNSS, Mobike is building the world's largest mobile Internet of Things system.

In the view of Qualcomm Technology Vice President Weixing Li, Qualcomm is committed to providing IoT optimization solutions that meet customer needs. Through cooperation with China Mobile Research Institute and Mobike on China's first multi-mode eMTC/NB-IoT field test, it will be able to demonstrate a highly connected and more efficient system for new IoT applications such as Mobike's bike-sharing platform.

The MDM9206 mentioned by Xia Yiping is a solution specially launched by Qualcomm for the IoT market. Compared with previous generations of LTE products, the narrowband LTE technology optimized for the IoT helps the MDM9206 modem to support cost-effectiveness, low power consumption, low bandwidth, years of battery life and wider coverage for the next generation of IoT products and services. The MDM9206 LTE modem can also provide advanced positioning performance, including an integrated A-GNSS solution that supports cellular and Wi-Fi positioning. The Cat M1 and NB1 LTE modes supported by the MDM9206 modem bring many improvements and optimizations to LTE, which will help IoT platforms such as Mobike reduce the complexity of IoT terminals and accelerate the commercialization of products.

Win-win future

Looking forward to a network society where everything is connected, the Internet of Things will become an important enabling technology for realizing the vision of a network society and the digital transformation of all industries. However, there are many technical standards for the Internet of Things, including Sigfox, LoRa, and WiFi based on unlicensed frequency bands, as well as NB-IoT and eMTC based on licensed frequency bands, which has brought great troubles to the industry chain.

Xia Yiping pointed out that Mobike will expand into the global market in the future, but the different choices of IoT standards by global operators pose considerable challenges to the production and distribution of Mobike. "If Mobike's chips can only support a single IoT standard, then in the future Mobike will supply different bicycles to Europe, America, and China, which will make the production, manufacturing, and delivery of Mobike more complicated."

Mobike is not the only one facing the same confusion. Telecom operators are also facing the same confusion. According to Ericsson's forecast, by 2022, there will be about 29 billion connected terminals, of which about 18 billion will be IoT terminals. The ubiquitous cellular network is very suitable for realizing low-cost IoT connections. IoT devices will make cities smarter through cellular networks.

Whether it is Vodafone, Telefonica, AT&T, Verizo and other European and American operators, or the three domestic operators, IoT is the focus of their strategic layout. However, facing the complex application scenarios of IoT, simple NB-IoT or eMTC will not be able to meet the needs. Building a composite high-quality network and working with the industry chain to promote multi-mode terminals have become the common choice of operators.

As an enabling manufacturer at the bottom of the industry chain, Qualcomm is also optimistic about the future development space of NB-IoT and eMTC, and actively advocates the deep integration of NB-IoT and eMTC to reduce product complexity, improve the maturity of the industry chain, reduce costs through large-scale commercial use, and ultimately promote NB-IoT and eMTC to become the mainstream of the market.

As a complete long-tail market, the Internet of Things involves the network layer, platform layer, terminal layer, application layer and peripheral systems. Only multi-mode products can support IoT platforms like Mobike to develop IoT products that can run on different operator networks around the world; only multi-mode products can maximize and scale product coverage and use the scale advantage of the underlying chips to resolve the problem of fragmentation in the IoT market.