Ericsson shows off its NB-IoT credentials in Taiwan

Ericsson has built IoT trial system for Chunghwa Telecom based on NB-IoT LPWAN technology to let it try out a bunch of IoT devices and applications.

Advanced but geographically compact market like Taiwan are a good place to try out new wireless technologies as they offer greater control of the environment. Chunghwa Telecom is Taiwan’s largest mobile operator and refers to itself as an integrated telecommunications services company. It will use Ericsson IoT RAN software and a network-sliced vEPC, deployed as a dedicated IoT Packet Core, among other techie morsels.

“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,” said Chen Shyang-Yih,of Chunghwa Telecom. “NB-IoT technology is one of our primary focuses in 2017, and we are keen to explore more opportunities based on the new technology.”

“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,” said Håkan Cervell, President of Ericsson Taiwan. “Together we will identify 5G use cases and applications for the digital transformation of industry verticals such as transportation and utilities.”

In the other side of the East China Sea SK Telecom combined with Ericsson to test Licensed Assisted Access, combining 20 MHz of LTE spectrum with three lots of the same amount of unlicensed wifi bands to achieve a claimed 1 Gbps of data throughput. LAA is an initial step towards the use of higher frequency bands in 5G.

“The technology that we have tested is the starting point for an evolution to 5G, and SK Telecom will continue to develop the infrastructure so that users can experience 5G service as soon as possible,” said Park Jin-hyo, Head of Network R&D at SK Telecom.

“Global mobile data traffic is expected to increase eight times by 2022, with video being increasingly dominant,” said Patrick Johansson, CEO at Ericsson-LG. “Naturally, South Korea is part of this development and Ericsson’s Licensed Assisted Access solution will provide a better user experience for SK Telecom’s customers.”

Earlier this week Ericsson helped Finnish operator DNA to demo ‘Gigabit LTE’ using a similar set of technologies to those used at the recent Wembley Stadium showcase. It also launched a bunch of new IoT services that moved us to verse.