4G NB-IoT reading meters in India
It's good to see some demand for telco IoT, which despite the hype is growing very slowly. Tata Power in Delhi has just signed on with Reliance Jio for reading smart meters. Jio has 96+% 4G coverage of India. It has a massive Edge cloud & services build planned.
Telco IoT demand is developing so slowly outside of China that companies like NTT are cutting back. The 5G hype for IoT is so extreme I've been part of a chorus of skeptics. 90%+ of IoT will use Wi-Fi. Telco revenue will mostly come from applications like meter reading, connecting outside the home or office.5G does little or nothing for IoT, which works fine in 4G.
China Mobile is the only carrier that has done well in IoT. It is approaching a billion connections. To do that, CM provides massive support, whether a company wants a turnkey system or just API access. It's driven prices all the way down, including for the modules manufacturers need. Massive orders achieved prices of just a few dollars, which it passed on.