Vodafone said it has been working extensively with its network partners Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia and Affirmed Networks to extend the reach of NB-IoT to Vodafone networks globally, as well as some of its partners’ networks around the world.
The group Operator has deployed the world’s first commercial NB-IoT service, based on fully integrated 3GPP standards, via a remote software upgrade of over 1,000 existing 4G base stations in six major cities in Spain.
Vodafone said it has also been testing the interoperability of NB-IoT modules from several vendors on our networks, a process that we call Interoperability Development Testing (IODT).
Vodafone aims to make NB-IoT the best technology for those applications and devices that will benefit from the kind of interconnect and roaming capabilities that the mobile industry has provided since its inception.
Luke Obbetson, Head of Research & Development and Technology Strategy, Vodafone Group
We have tested devices from Neul and Qualcomm against Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia systems in multiple regions. All of these vendors’ NB-IoT Radio Access Network (RAN) technology has been successfully interconnected with Vodafone’s IoT core network.
Edward Deng, President of Wireless Network Product Line, Huawei
Since completing the initial roll-out of the first fully standardised commercial NB-IoT network in Spain, Huawei has been working closely with Vodafone and its network partners to verify the interconnection capability between Huawei’s NB-IoT RAN, Vodafone’s strategic IoT core network and all currently available commercial NB-IoT modules.
