From the "darling" of the Internet of Everything to a low-key exit: The ups and downs of NB-IoT over a decade
II. Popularity and Ecosystem Expansion: The Golden Age Arrives
With the support of standards and policies, the development of NB - IoT entered the golden age. Various entities made great investments, and many memorable scenarios emerged.
(1) Operators' "Arms Race", Continuously Strengthening Network Infrastructure
As a cellular network technology supporting Internet of Things services, operators' promotion of NB - IoT network construction is a prerequisite for application development. In terms of network construction, the three domestic operators were very enthusiastic and made great contributions to the development of NB - IoT.
China Telecom took the lead and was the fastest in NB - IoT network construction. One prominent feature was that it made full use of the advantages of its 800MHz golden frequency band.
As early as June 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved China Telecom to use the 800MHz and 2100MHz frequency bands for LTE networking, providing a policy basis for its re - cultivation of the 800MHz frequency band. The 800MHz frequency band has the characteristics of wide coverage and strong penetration, making it an ideal choice for deploying NB - IoT networks.
China Telecom quickly took action. In January 2017, it released the NB - IoT enterprise standard and launched large - scale field tests in 12 cities in seven provinces. In April, it announced that it planned to basically achieve full - network coverage of 800M NB - IoT by June of that year. On May 17, 2017 (World Telecommunication Day), China Telecom announced that it had built 310,000 NB - IoT base stations, becoming the world's first NB - IoT commercial network with full - network coverage. In July, China Telecom officially announced the commercialization of the NB - IoT network, becoming the first domestic operator to launch commercial services.
Subsequently, China Telecom continued to expand the network scale and improve the coverage rate. By July 2020, the number of NB - IoT base stations had exceeded 410,000, all upgraded and opened based on the 800MHz LTE network, and the overall national coverage rate exceeded 97%.
It can be said that China Telecom was the "pioneer" in NB - IoT construction. Relying on its first - mover advantage and the 800MHz golden frequency band, it quickly built the world's first and largest full - coverage NB - IoT network, laying its leading position in the Internet of Things network infrastructure.
China Mobile went through a process from "hesitation" to firm promotion and finally achieved large - scale investment in NB - IoT construction.
In the early stage of NB - IoT construction, due to the lack of an FDD license, China Mobile could not directly deploy NB - IoT based on its 900MHz frequency band, so its initial progress was relatively slow. The turning point came in June 2017 when the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology allowed operators to deploy NB - IoT systems on the allocated GSM frequency bands, clearing the policy obstacles for China Mobile.
After that, China Mobile entered the stage of large - scale investment and construction in NB - IoT. In August of that year, China Mobile issued a procurement announcement for network equipment worth 39.5 billion yuan and a procurement tender for 1.11 million base station antennas, marking the large - scale deployment of the NB - IoT network. In November, China Mobile announced that it would achieve the commercialization of the NB - IoT network in 346 cities by the end of 2017.
In 2020, to further take over the Internet of Things users after the 2G network shutdown, the Construction Department of China Mobile issued a document, clearly stating that "it is decided to stop adding new 2G Internet of Things users by the end of 2020" and planning to build 118,000 new NB - IoT base stations nationwide in 2020, bringing the cumulative number of base stations to 350,000. This decision aimed to build a high - quality NB - IoT network.
China Unicom's NB - IoT construction was limited by its spectrum resources and progressed relatively slowly, but it was still advancing steadily.
Due to historical reasons, China Unicom only had a 6MHz bandwidth in the 900MHz frequency band, which significantly restricted the deployment of NB - IoT in this frequency band. Due to the lack of bandwidth resources, it could not deploy the NB - IoT network as quickly and cost - effectively as China Telecom and China Mobile. In the early stage, it could only consider mixed networking on the 900MHz and 1800MHz frequency bands.
In May 2017, China Unicom held a press conference for the trial commercialization of the NB - IoT network in Shanghai and claimed to have built the world's largest NB - IoT metropolitan network at that time (in Shanghai). At the same time, it also joined hands with chip and module manufacturers to launch the "China Unicom NB - IoT Terminal Industry Alliance".
In April 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology allocated part of the 900MHz spectrum (904 - 909/949 - 954MHz) vacated by China Mobile to China Unicom. In the same year, China Unicom clearly stated that it would open 300,000 NB - IoT base stations in May, basically achieving national coverage. It mainly promoted the deployment on the 900MHz frequency band and used the 1800MHz frequency band as a supplement.
During the development of NB - IoT, the three operators invested in building more than one million base stations in total, forming the world's largest NB - IoT infrastructure. However, these more than one million base stations still could not fully meet the development needs of NB - IoT applications, especially in some network edge areas and areas that required further in - depth coverage. Later, many manufacturers in the industry proposed various models, such as small base stations and network switching solutions based on eSIM, to solve this pain point.