AT&T, Tuesday announced that it will accelerate the rollout of nationawide LTE-M Internet of Things (IoT) network in the US ahead of schedule in the second quarter of this year. Previously, ATT had said that the rollout will be completed by end of the year. The Mexico deployment is planned by the end of the year.
The plans follow the successful pilot of the AT&T LTE-M Low-Power Wide-Area network at AT&T Labs in San Ramon, California. AT&T switched on North America's first LTE-M enabled commercial site in October last year to support the pilot with other ecosystem players.
"Thanks to the success of our pilot, we're on track to support LTE-M devices across our commercial network in the U.S. and Mexico ahead of schedule," said Chris Penrose, President, Internet of Things Solutions, AT&T. "We're seeing real momentum for LTE-M that will let us connect more end points than ever before. And we can do it at a lower cost with superior performance and carrier-grade security."
"We fully expect to have nationwide availability of LTE-M technology in Mexico by the end of 2017. This is huge for our enterprise customers. It's an important step to help accelerate the speed of business," said Kelly King, CEO, AT&T Mexico.
LTE-M will be the catalyst for large-scale IoT deployments, said AT&T. Devices designed to operate on the LTE-M network have advantages over traditional IoT connectivity options which includes lower device costs, longer battery life (expected up to 10 years), better coverage underground and deep inside buildings and in terms of module size (as small as 1/6 the size of current modules).
