Vodafone on Tuesday took the wraps off a new Internet of Things (IoT) service designed to support devices with low power and bandwidth demands.
Called the Cellular Internet of Things, it has been developed in partnership with Huawei and the Chinese vendor’s IoT unit Neul, as well as module maker u-blox. It adds a new network access layer to Vodafone’s global machine-to-machine (M2M) network specifically for low-power IoT devices such as smart meters. Because it uses licensed spectrum, Vodafone has greater control over the performance and reliability of the service.
"Having greater ability to support low cost, low power devices as part of our existing global Internet of Things service gives us the ability to connect the largest range of objects and devices on a single network infrastructure," said Luke Ibbetson, head of R&D at Vodafone, in a statement.
In addition, Vodafone said the Cellular Internet of Things will be published as an open industry standard by the 3GPP, enabling other companies to deploy the technology.
"We believe that providing a standards based solution for low power and low bandwidth devices will become increasingly important as the Internet of Things evolves," said Andreas Thiel, vice president at u-blox’s cellular division. "We are pleased to partner with Huawei, Neul and Vodafone to show how these vital criteria can be achieved."
