Vodafone New Zealand has simultaneously turned on NB-IoT and CAT-M1 technology in its cellular network.
NB-IoT is available to 97.5 percent of the population and 48.2 percent of the land area, Vodafone NZ says. CAT-M1 (which Vodafone prefers to refer to as LTE-M) has 60.1 percent population coverage. Vodafone NZ says this his will increase to 96.6 percent population coverage and 40.8 percent land area coverage, but has given no timeframe.
Rival mobile network operator, Spark New Zealand switched on CAT-M1 in September this year. It already operates a widespread LoRaWAN network and said in March this year that it was still evaluating the case for NB-IoT.
Vodafone IoT country manager, Scott Pollard, said both technologies would enable connectivity for a wide range of devices. “NB-IoT delivers signal strength that can penetrate through concrete, underwater, underground and deep into infrastructure,” he said. It is set to shape the connected farm of the future with applications like remote monitoring for stock feeding, electric fencing and water tank levels.
“LTE-M offers strong battery life and fast throughput of data to enable real-time applications like vehicle tracking, asset monitoring and logistics, with future support for voice calls.”
He said a number of pilot projects using the new services were already underway.
In Punakaiki, a small community on the West Coast of the South Island on the edge of the Paparoa National Park, a local volunteer group working to eliminate feral animals is using the MinkPolice, technology from Danish company Alert House to alert it when a mink is caught in one of its traps.
MinkPolice’s devices presently use text messages, not NB-IoT or LTE-M, but MinkPolice says it is about to move to NB-IoT, which will enable volunteers to set traps in more remote areas of the sanctuary.
Also, according to Vodafone NZ, Auckland-based IoT company, Motiv Solutions has designed customised hardware and a web-based scheduling and control system to manage and monitor the status of electronic school road signs across Auckland.
The managing director of Motiv Solutions, Ben Birch said: “We’ve created an IoT solution that delivers Auckland Transport real-time performance of their smart school-sign fleet, meaning they are alerted to any road-side collisions with the sign, thefts or vandalism and can keep track of solar performance.”
He added: “The application has been ported to operate on Vodafone’s LTE-M network and has delivered exceptional performance throughout engineering testing of the first live towers.”
In March 2017 Computerworld NZ reportedThinxtra, the licensee for the Sigfox LPWAN and its New Zealand partner Kordia saying Auckland Transport was interested in using the network for this application, and that Thinxtra Massey University and Motiv had developed a proof of concept.
