Turkcell rolls out NB-IoT and LTE-M across its LTE footprint

Turkcell has upgraded all of its LTE base stations operating in the 800MHz band to support NB-IoT. Turkcell also now supports LTE-M and had deployed this across Turkey. The Turkey-based operator envisions that NB-IoT will enable a range of smart city applications, metering and health services, collecting valuable data for its customers.

As well as delivering better coverage, Turkcell expects NB-IoT to support dense Internet of Things deployments, while making more efficient use of network resources and enabling longer battery lives for connected devices than conventional cellular technologies.

Turkcell, which is now developing its service pricing models, anticipates NB-IoT will both replace existing technology and inspire entirely new use cases.  It estimates that NB-IoT will be integrated into commercially available consumer devices around mid-2018.

Having invested heavily in its LTE network, which was launched in April 2016, Turkcell is using state-of-the-art LTE-Advanced technology to provide a high-performance backbone for its NB-IoT services.

Next steps

Turkcell expects the NB-IoT ecosystem to grow dramatically in 2018, as widespread adoption of the technology prompts more players to produce modules and chipsets, and encourages customers to come up with solutions that benefit from low power wide area connectivity.  Turkcell is building a local ecosystem, in addition to its international partnerships.

Turkcell expects NB-IoT to take off quite fast, with the speed of uptake governed by the availability of equipment, and awareness of the technical advantages, such as greater coverage and capacity.