Ericsson will build a Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) system for Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s largest integrated telecommunications services company, enabling the island to take its first steps toward joining the Internet of Things (IoT). Chunghwa Telecom will use the system to trial a range of IoT devices and applications in its laboratory.
NB-IoT is a 3GPP standards-based Low Power Wide Area technology that offers significant improvements in areas such as deep indoor coverage, power consumption, device complexity, system capacity and spectrum efficiency.
The end-to-end NB-IoT solution developed for Chunghwa Telecom will comprise a range of Ericsson offerings including the Ericsson Radio System, Massive IoT radio access network (RAN) software, virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC), virtual Subscriber Data Management (vSDM), and the IoT Smart Device and Application service on the AppIoT platform. The vEPC is deployed as a dedicated IoT Packet Core, using network slicing functionality, enabling Chunghwa Telecom to explore massive machine type communications use cases and rapidly bring new services to market.
Chen Shyang-Yih, Executive Vice President of Chunghwa Telecom and President of Telecommunication Laboratories, said: "Ericsson has long been our leading network provider and has demonstrated the strong device life-cycle management and integration capabilities that are required for a system of this type. NB-IoT technology is one of our primary focuses in 2017, and we are keen to explore more opportunities based on the new technology."
Håkan Cervell, President of Ericsson Taiwan, said: "This agreement represents a real milestone for both companies, and shows that we have made rapid progress since signing a 5G memorandum of understanding during Mobile World Congress 2017. Together we will identify 5G use cases and applications for the digital transformation of industry verticals such as transportation and utilities."