KT Launches Commercial Nationwide NB-IoT Network
KT announced the deployment of their commercial network across South Korea in July 2017. The operator deployed the NB-IoT commercial network in the metropolitan area (including Seoul) in South Korea 25th April 2017, which has widened their network coverage to 99.9% of people and 95% territory in South Korea.
NB-IoT can be used for a wide variety of applications, such as location tracking for children and the elderly, asset tracking, utility metering/monitoring. KT have been preparing for release of a multi-functional location tracker based on NB-IoT with Samsung electronics and will be launching this in September 2017. The operators has also announced that gas metering and monitoring services connected by the KT NB-IoT network also will be launching in September. Additional NB-IoT-based services will be unveiled in 2017 such as smart parking, solar energy development monitoring.
Previously, KT piloted the use of NB-IoT to connect safety jackets and safety tents. The jacket can monitor a hiker’s health information, for example, and send the data to a mountain rescue centre in the event of an accident or illness. The safety tent is equipped with sensors that can detect human bodies and smoke and can send an alert in the case of attempted theft and or fire.
For the pilot, which began in September 2016, KT and Daejeon Metropolitan City connected six safety jackets and a safety tent using NB-IoT. Nokia upgraded a base station to support NB-IoT, while Intel supplied the NB-IoT chipsets. Kolon Industries has developed the smart jackets and smart tent.