China Mobile Shanghai has teamed up with Ericsson and bike-sharing service startup Mobike to conduct a cellular IoT trial on the Chinese operator’s live network in Shanghai.
During the trial, Ericsson’s latest cellular IoT technologies were used to more accurately locate the IoT-enabled bikes of Mobike, providing a more convenient and enhanced bike-sharing experience to Mobike’s users.
Coverage areas were also extended to places that traditional mobile coverage can hardly reach, such as underground parking lots. The new technologies will also significantly reduce the time to unlock the bikes and users will enjoy "open upon scanning" without waiting.
Mobike vice president Yang Zhongjie said latest cellular IoT technologies like CAT-M1 and NB-IoT will greatly enhance the user experience in the future and solve existing challenges encountered by Mobike such as coverage in difficult locations.
“We also expect Chinese operators to complete the nationwide deployment of cellular IoT as early as possible," Yang added.
New cellular IoT technologies provide better coverage and faster response time with narrower bandwidth and fewer resources than mobile technology. They also bring energy-saving and deep-coverage features which enable five-to-seven-fold coverage improvements for operators in the same site environment. The battery life also extends to more than 10 years.
The successful trial marks an important step forward in the large-scale commercial deployment of cellular IoT in China, Ericsson said in a statement.
China Mobile and Ericsson recently signed an IoT agreement as part of China Mobile's Big Connectivity strategy.