Page 99 - SAMENA Trends - June-July 2020

ARTICLE SAMENA TRENDS

The offering provides customers with for example, utility meters to transmit China Mobile has developed
services including M2M SIM cards, plus readings from a basement.
the option of connectivity and lifecycle an open IoT application
management for these products, platform Meanwhile, the company’s partners enablement platform
integration services and a variety of data, are also able to use its open lab to test known as OneNET, with the
SMS and voice plans to meet needs for technologies and functions such as voice
different scenarios and optimise coverage over LTE (VoLTE), power-saving modes aim of enabling business
at both a local and global level. and equipment interoperability, as well customers access to
as SMS and non-IP communications. In
On top of that, customers have access to addition, China Mobile offers software a centralised platform
a self-service portal that includes billing development kits (SDKs), which can allowing them to rapidly
and invoicing services, and facilitates the be used by developers to support the
management of connections on a massive applications they make. and cheaply integrate
scale via a web user interface or API – a end-to-end services and
key facet given the immense number of On top of that, China Mobile has developed then use them in various
new IoT devices and applications that will an open IoT application enablement
be coming online in the next few years, platform known as OneNET, with the aim industry verticals when
some of which are difficult to even imagine of enabling business customers access needed.
yet. to a centralised platform allowing them
to rapidly and cheaply integrate end-to- All these services provide a robust
Growth environment end services and then use them in various framework by which CMI, China Mobile and
China Mobile has been working hard to industry verticals when needed. their customers and partners can grow a
present partners with the most conducive The platform aims to offer an intelligent, strong ecosystem of IoT products and
environment possible for driving the high-quality centralised cloud service solutions – meeting the demands of the
types of IoT products and services being that supports a variety of protocols and markets of the future.
demanded by the global market, allowing APIs. In line with this, OneNET enables
them to test and experiment with new data to be transferred from IoT devices Building an ecosystem
types of offering. and, conversely, extracted for integration With CMI pointing to industry sectors
into developer applications. Wrapping in including connected cars, equipment
The operator has, for example, created big data services, the platform supports monitoring, finance and the sharing
an open lab for IoT innovation in Beijing, different types of connectivity, sensors and economy as growing IoT segments, the
where partners can test services based intelligent hardware. company and its parent have also been
on the low-power network technologies getting involved in a wide variety of other
Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) and LTE for
Machine-Type Communications (LTE-M) Hand-in-Hand Program (hi-H Program)
using 3GPP-compliant equipment for With a view to helping build an ecosystem that will enable services such as 5G and
those purposes. This technology is set to IoT to thrive globally, China Mobile International (CMI) launched its Hand-in-Hand
be key for moving forward in a segment Program (hi-H Program) in 2015. Comprising collaborators that include multiple
dubbed “massive IoT”, which involves all major operators from across the world, it has now grown to 26 members.
kinds of business cases, including energy
and water meters, medical wearables, Most recently, Vietnam-based Viettel Business Solutions (VTS) became the 26th
tracking sensors for transport and a whole member of the initiative in July 2019, joining the likes of Airtel Business, AT&T,
multitude of other devices with low-power Chunghwa Telecom, Korea Telecom, Orange, PLDT, Sparkle, StarHub, T-Mobile, Tata
requirements for operation. Communications, Telenor, Telia Company, Telstra, True, Turk Telekom International,
The company is carrying out NB-IoT VEON and Vodafone.
initiatives in other segments too, showing
the wide-reaching possibilities of this type The idea of the Hi-H Program, which operates under the principles of openness,
of technology. For example, China Mobile connection and collaboration, is to encourage cooperation through workshops and
cites smart parking pilots it has run in working groups, developing a multi-party hub to maximise efficiency and resources,
conjunction with partner DTMobile, with a share experiences and boost innovation and technological advances.
view to helping cities improve management
of parking assets so they can boost their Ultimately, the aim is to find real synergies to help the big up-and-coming technologies
revenues, as well as slashing congestion to take off so the whole industry can benefit, increasing the scope for provision of
and pollution. increasingly needed seamless, borderless products and services worldwide.

Furthermore, testing conducted by China Among topics discussed at a hi-H event at the end of last year were 5G+IoT, and the
Mobile has indicated that NB-IoT can latest application developments, innovative concepts and use cases.
be delivered underground, enabling,

99 JUNE-JULY 2020