13 Companies announce NB-IoT Chips

If history is anything to go by, it’s going to be unlucky for some, but it’s an indication of the momentum which is growing around cellular IoT that so many chip companies have jumped on the bandwagon. 

It’s not cheap to develop a cellular chip, even one that is moderately simple, such as is the case with the NB-IoT standard.  Back in 2012, when I wrote about the cost of developing wireless standards, I put it at around $6 million for each chip and protocol stack.  That was looking at Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.  With the additional complexity of any cellular standard, along with network interoperability testing, it becomes far more expensive, as you need to test with as many operators as possible.  Hence the development cost to get a chip and stack to market is probably at least $15 million. 

With thirteen different companies bringing chips to market, that’s an investment of around $200 million.  Some of these have tried to cut their development time by acquiring start-ups which were already some way down the route.  Sony purchased Altair, Huawei bought Neul, ARM bought NextG-Com and Mistbase, Goodix acquired CommSolid, while Nordic Semiconductor picked up around 60 engineers in Finland’s Oulu.  We don’t know how much they spent on these acquisitions, but it’s probably well over $200 million.  Add to that the costs of the standardisation process, infrastructure development and initial market trials and it’s clear that somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion has already been spent on getting NB-IoT to the point where it is today.  That’s a level of investment that should be worrying competing standards like LoRa and Sigfox, as the NB-IoT companies will do all they can to recoup their investment.

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Four Highlights from MWC2018

For anyone involved with mobile phones, networks or the IoT, the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is the place to be in February.  Over four days, the industry reveals its latest and fanciest ideas in the ongoing evolution of mobile telephony.  It is vast.  This year around 2,300 companies were exhibiting, several with stands large enough to fit a passenger jet in; over 100,000 visitors were wandering around it, including senior politicians and royalty and the organising industry body – the GSMA (God Save Mobile Analysts) probably raked in around $100 million in revenue.  Which is more than some of the sectors it is promoting will make this year.

It’s not a show famed for radical new technology.  Unlike CES, which gives us technical wonders like the selfie stick, MWC is about gradual evolution.  But that is gradual evolution of a very, very successful industry – one that likes to take the annual opportunity to convene in Barcelona and flaunt its success.

So what was new?  For me, there were four things which stood out.  That might feel minor, but when you’re trying to predict the future, it’s difficult to judge.  These are the ripples and butterflies that could bring massive change.  No-one in the industry thought SMS and messaging would take off.  But they were happy to bet on WAP as the mobile internet, which only goes to prove you should never believe an analyst or futurologist.  So here’s my choice of four things which took my fancy.

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