Tele2, Nokia Demonstrate NB-IoT in Estonia

Tele2 and Nokia transmit temperature data with NarrowBand-IoT over B1 (2100 MHz) LTE network.

“Summer time and the livin’ is easy …”, and soon it can be even more so. Why? Because for the first time ever we’re making it affordable to have reliable and secure remote visibility and control over many of  the “Things” in our daily lives.

Nothing speaks like an example: Remember the last time you put the week’s shopping in your car, left it for a minute, bumped into a friend, then returned to the car thirty minutes later to find your car no longer in the shade of the nearby building. Your groceries now melting as your car interior heated up to over 50 °C Wouldn’t a little warning message annoucing:“car temperature exceeding 45 °C” have been extremely helpful?

Now, you might say: “Yes of course, but this is already possible!”.

To which I reply: “Ah, but are you sure that your car had a sufficiently strong network signal to transmit the warning? Or are you sure that you had replaced the sensor’s battery recently, as you’d been meaning to?”

In other words, to generate real value out of connecting all the little things which surround us, certain enablers must be in place. Reliable connectivity regardless of your location, is paramount. We want to be able to switch on the sensor and forget about it for the next 10 years, confident that battery won’t deplete frequently and without warning.  Last, but not least, most remote sensors should come at a consumer-friendly price tag. So, it appears  that the perfect solution isn’t quite there yet…. Or is it?

Argo Virkebau, CEO of Tele2 Estonia comments on partnering with Nokia to explore the human possibilities of technology: “This NB-IoT demonstration illustrated how sensors will make our lives easier and could even help to save lives once they are connected.”

Nokia has been working on exactly this for some time now. And we call it: NB-IoT for Narrow Band – Internet of Things. To make it a truly affordable, reliable and secure connectivity solution for the Internet of Things, we’ve been driving it in 3GPP standardization with an emphasis on maximum reuse of existing LTE network infrastructure. With that there will be no need to build new networks.  LTE network operators will be able to use their existing LTE networks and licensed spectrum, which  is important in ensuring that the transmission of your sensors’ data is protected against interference from other radio systems. Reuse is also important, because we want you to benefit from the technology now and you certainly don’t want to wait until the next frequency spectrum auctions take place in your country. Leveraging the established LTE framework also ensures security, global interoperability and scale, which in turn will foster an affordable global ecosystem of NB-IoT connected Things.

Last week, the standardization of NB-IoT was finalized and we celebrated with a live demonstration of NB-IoT together with Tele2 Estonia, using Tele2’s commercial LTE 2100MHz frequency spectrum and network.

The event’s guests were among the first in the world to see a NB-IoT connected temperature sensor in a car, transmitting temperature data over the air to a nearby commercial LTE base station. For this purpose the temperature sensor was connected to an Intel NB-IoT device, which transmitted the sensor data to a commercial Nokia Flexi Multiradio 10 base station of Tele2’s LTE network, which was  upgraded with NB-IoT software.

“The live demonstration in Tallinn puts Tele2 and Estonia at the forefront of NB-IoT commercialization in Europe and worldwide,” says Ervins Kampans, CTIO of Tele2 Estonia.

Argo Virkebau, CEO of Tele2 Estonia commented: “A year ago, Nokia and Tele2 launched the world’s fastest 4G on 2100 MHz in Estonia and now the same frequency and cooperation were used again to showcase the world’s most advanced IoT technology. This NB-IoT demonstration illustrated how sensors will make our lives easier and could even help to save lives once they are connected. It is these human possibilities of technology, which we are striving to realize together with our partner Nokia.”

“The live demonstration in Tallinn puts Tele2 and Estonia at the forefront of NB-IoT commercialization in Europe and worldwide. NB-IoT and  its easy deployment gives us an excellent opportunity to cater to the booming numbers of smart things utilizing our existing network infrastructure and spectrum,” added Ervins Kampans, CTIO of Tele2 Estonia. “Remote temperature sensing in the car employing NB-IoT is a good example to present future use cases and illustrates how Tele2 and other mobile operators could harness the advantages of NB-IoT to drive further growth of the Internet of Things.”

Rami Avidan, Managing Director of Tele2 IoT continues “The development of this technology will be an important part of the future growth that we see in the IoT area. From the Tele2 IoT side we want to offer customers a broad portfolio of products and services, and many of them complement each other in a fantastic way. To showcase the NB-IoT solution in Estonia shows that we will continue to challenge the established way of doing things.”