Singapore’s smallest mobile player M1 has contracted Finnish vendor Nokia to roll out a nationwide commercial narrow-band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) network in the first half of next year.

When completed, the deployment, Nokia’s first large-scale deployment with an operator in Asia, will be the first commercial NB-IoT network in Singapore.

The NB-IoT standards were finalised by the 3GPP in June. NB-IoT technology is the cellular camp’s favoured technology for low power wide area (LPWA) IoT services, supposedly delivering the benefits of licensed spectrum, such as network reliability and security.

Commercial NB-IoT devices are expected to be available by mid-2017.

Rival proprietary LPWA technologies such as RPMA (from vendor Ingenu), LoRa (from the LoRa Alliance) and Sigfox have already gained market share around the world.

“NB-IoT technology is the key to connecting the coming wave of smart devices,” said M1 CEO Karen Kooi. “Our strategic partnership with Nokia strengthens our ability to support Singapore’s IoT ecosystem to drive innovative and effective new fleet management, smart metering, public safety and other smart solutions.”

Hetnet rollout
M1’s partnership with Nokia also will see the vendor roll out a commercial heterogeneous network (hetnet). M1 will deploy an overlay of integrated small cells and Wi-Fi equipment across hundreds of high-traffic hotspots nationwide, to complement its 4G network. Using LTE-Wi-Fi aggregation technology, M1 said it expects to deliver theoretical peak download speeds of more than 1Gb/s by 2017.

Deployment sites will include MRT/LRT stations, malls and popular outdoor areas, such as Marina Bay and Clarke Quay.

The hetnet rollout follows M1’s trials earlier in the year at multiple locations as part of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore’s hetnet trials, which involved all operators.

NB-IoT across the region
China Telecom said last month it plans to have nationwide NB-IoT coverage using the 800MHz band by the end of the first half of next year, while rival China Unicom is planning large-scale NB-IoT field trials in more than five cities this year, with aims to start commercial deployment by the end of the year and take coverage nationwide in 2018.

South Korea’s largest mobile operator SK Telecom last month completed the nationwide commercial rollout of a low-power wide area (LPWA) network based on LoRa technology. Rival KT announced in March it is investing KRW150 billion ($130 million) on building an NB-IoT network for the so called “Internet of Small Things (IoST)”.