U.S.-based telecom company T-Mobile has launched narrowband IoT (Internet of Things) bands for 5G communications. With this launch, T-Mobile seeks to provide enterprises using low-power devices that communicate a small amount of data with a dedicated bandwidth of narrow slices of frequencies.
T-Mobile say that sensors used in IoT devices do not need to communicate frequently since they only transmit a few bytes at a time. They claim that since the bandwidth devoted to IoT communications is small, the devices can use low power and low data rates.
Since businesses leveraging IoT for devices will soon be switching to 5G connectivity, T-Mobile say that launching a series of narrowband communications was the right move to make. They claim that with this narrowband for IoT, businesses can achieve spectrum efficiencies without having to shell out more on the bandwidth.
Speaking about the launch, Balaji Sridharan, Vice President of IoT and M2M (Machine to Machine), at T-Mobile, commented:
It goes back to the commercial promise we made where you’re able to connect billions of devices. This is the way we’re going to do it. It’s very secure and it actually provides a great tool to lower the bar for experimentation. We’re working to get this into the hands of the developer community.