The GSMA announced that Mobile IoT or Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) networks are now globally available in licensed spectrum in 50 markets around the world following 94 launches by 50 different mobile operators across both LTE-M and NB-IoT.

Coverage is now expected to reach approximately 93% of the world’s largest IoT markets by Q2 2019. According to GSMA Intelligence forecasts, by 2025 there will be 3.5 billion cellular IoT connections, including 1.9 billion licensed LPWA connections.

“The speed with which these networks have been standardized and deployed around the world is staggering. They are now available in every major IoT market encouraging the development of innovative new products and services across a wide range of sectors,” commented Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA. “The market clearly sees the benefit of solutions in licensed spectrum that offer flexibility, adaptability, security, and lower cost. They are also future-proofed for the 5G era and will support and co-exist with other 5G technologies.”

Mobile IoT Global Adoption it markets

To date there have been 69 NB-IoT launches in 46 markets and 25 launches of LTE-M networks in 19 markets. This is supported by a network of 47 Open Labs worldwide enabling organizations to test their products and services prior to launch: www.gsma.com/iot/deployment-map/.

Recent launches in Q4 2018 in Europe include Altice (Portugal; NB-IoT), Orange, (France and Romania; LTE-M), Telenor Group (Norway; NB-IoT, LTE-M), Telia (Estonia; NB-IoT), SFR (France; NB-IoT), Swisscom (Switzerland; NB-IoT, LTE-M) and Vodafone (Malta and UK; NB-IoT).

In Asia, Grameenphone (Bangladesh; NB-IoT), Chungwa (Taiwan; LTE-M), Telkomsel (Indonesia; NB-IoT) Viettel Group (Vietnam; NB-IoT) and Megafon and MTS (Russia; NB-IoT).

Verizon and Spark also launched LTE-M in North America and New Zealand respectively, while STC launched NB-IoT in Saudi Arabia and Telefonica launched LTE-M in Argentina.