Dubai

Etisalat became the first operator in the Middle East and North Africa region to offer new technologies in internet of Things and LTE in a bid to enable variety of solutions and services.

The telecom operator on Sunday said it has commercially launched NB-IoT (Narrowband internet of Things) and LTE-M (Long Term Evolution for machines).

Both NB-IoT and LTE-M technologies are 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) based standardised technologies using licensed spectrum for carrier-grade security and targeting low power wide area IoT requirement. These technologies also enable battery life of more than 10 years for a wide range of devices.

The IoT device testing were conducted with leading chipset and module manufacturers including Huawei, Qualcomm and Quectel, where end-to-end testing was performed with IoT devices connected to Etisalat IoT platform.

“Etisalat will continue to participate in the IoT ecosystem by fulfilling growing market demands, in particular our business and enterprise customers,” Saeed Al Zarouni, Senior Vice-President, Mobile Network at Etisalat, said in a statement.

In addition, he said that Etisalat is focusing on investing and developing new technologies to work in line with the overall company’s objective to support the government in developing Smart Cities in the country.

Etisalat is also deploying end-to-end IoT solutions and services for its customers in coordination with multi network vendors and IoT device suppliers targeting wide range of verticals and industries focused on Smart Cities.