Last weekend, a major event happened in the Internet of Things industry. China Unicom Internet of Things, ZTE Cara, and Semtech held a joint press conference. The three parties jointly announced the official release of China Unicom's "LoRa Connection Management Platform" product and signed a strategic cooperation agreement.
The series of products include NetWork Server, Join Server and BOSS operation support system, which can manage and connect to LoRa gateways and terminal nodes that conform to the interface protocol recognized by both parties, and have the ability to "plug and play" after power-on. This product is designed to meet the rapidly growing demand of customers for the LoRa connection management platform.
In recent years, the Internet of Things industry has developed rapidly, and several sets of seemingly incompatible standard systems have been formed. NB-IoT and LoRa have occupied the mainstream of the market. In the Chinese market, the telecom camp represented by operators supports NB-IoT, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology requires the construction of 1.5 million NB-IoT base stations by 2020. The main supporters of LoRa are ZTE Carat and Alibaba, while Semtech is the core chip supplier. Recently, Tencent also announced to join, forming a clear Internet camp.
The significance of the tripartite cooperation is that the NB-IoT and LoRa pair of CPs are not completely competing against each other under the general trend of the Internet of Things blowout, but more similar to a mutually-win competition and cooperation relationship. When did the cooperation start? How large will it be? How long can it last? What kind of industrial changes might it bring?
Why did China Unicom enter LoRa?To answer the above questions, we must first figure out why China Unicom entered LoRa. Just recently, China Unicom launched a bidding for NB-IoT modules with a scale of up to 3 million, setting a record in the industry. This shows the intensity and determination of NB-IoT investment. At the same time, it announced its entry into LoRa. Those who didn't know would have to sigh that China Unicom is indeed rich and willful after the mixed reform.
However, the author has learned that this year's NB-IoT application has just started and it is difficult to have such a large scale. China Unicom's centralized procurement should be implemented in batches, which is a framework agreement. In fact, among the three major operators, China Unicom’s financial resources are still relatively weak. Its capital expenditure in the first half of this year is only 11.6 billion yuan, and it will also take a more cautious attitude towards investment in the Internet of Things.
Previous market analysis has predicted that by 2025, the Internet of Things connection investment will account for 22% of the operator's mobile business investment, and revenue will only account for 3%. It is difficult to become a new growth point and must rely on the transformation of the overall business model. Then, China Unicom has a relatively clear logic for entering LoRa: use its own IoT platform advantages and channel resources to enter the LoRa market, expand the scale of IoT connections with a lower investment, and explore new business opportunities.
The Internet of Things has become a weapon for upgrading and transforming various industries and enhancing competitiveness, and the demand for connection is very strong. The price of NB-IoT module for the centralized procurement of Telecom last year was 66 yuan. This year, China Unicom limited the price to 35 yuan. There is limited room for further lowering costs in the short term. In contrast, the entire LoRa industry chain has cost advantages, which in the early stage is beneficial to low-cost and flexible deployment of government and enterprise customers. In addition, Unicom's own efforts to tap Internet of Things customers will also incur large market costs. "Meet the rapid growth of customers' demand for LoRa connection management platform." Chen Xiaotian, general manager of China Unicom Internet of Things, actually said very clearly.
Liu Jianye, general manager of ZTE Cara, revealed to C114 that the cooperation is by no means a whim, and the communication between the company and China Unicom has been more than a year. The scope of cooperation will be very wide, including Unicom's use of partners' existing LoRa network to serve customers, and the ability to build a network together, which is very flexible and can be implemented in all provinces and cities.
Liu Jianye pointed out that this cooperation is not a transition plan waiting for the maturity of the NB-IoT network. These two systems compete in some areas, but they also have their own relatively clear spheres of influence. In scenarios such as residential communities, parking lots, farms, and industrial parks, LoRa deployment is more flexible, autonomous, and low-cost, and is more favored by customers. "I think that in the future, China Unicom will flexibly choose different Internet of Things access methods according to customer needs. The cooperation will be long-term and sustainable."
Significantly good for the LoRa industryIn the Chinese market, the strong support of the telecommunications camp, the inclination of policies, and the NB-IoT itself as a mobile cellular network has the characteristics of wide coverage, mobility, and large connectivity, which can bring richer application scenarios and become the mainstream connection of the Internet of Things technology. However, NB-IoT cannot take all of the Internet of Things, and another one or more technologies will inevitably share a portion of the market.
The characteristics of IoT technologies such as eMTC, LoRa, and sigfox have their own merits, and they also have their own supporters. At the beginning of this year, because of the "Technical Requirements for Micropower Short-distance Radio Transmission Equipment (Draft for Comment)" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, strict restrictions on unauthorized frequency were imposed, which once put LoRa in an extremely dangerous situation. However, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has fully absorbed the opinions of the industry, which has brought about a positive turn for the better. Liu Jianye revealed that the official plan is expected to be introduced at the end of the year and will not restrict the development of LoRa.
Backed by the strong communication technology strength of ZTE, and the application ecological support of Internet giants such as Alibaba and Tencent, LoRa has already occupied an industrial ecological advantage over technical systems such as sigfox, and the entry of China Unicom has brought a lot to the LoRa industry. Great encouragement. China Unicom's IoT brand, technology and channel resources are all lacking by manufacturers in the LoRa industry chain. Cooperation is a natural mutually beneficial and win-win relationship.
You must know that the IoT industry chain is very long, the ecology is extremely complex, the application is very wide, and the potential is endless. Most of the industry chain is small and medium-sized manufacturers. The support of the giants means that they are optimistic about the market prospects. The vane of market expansion. The joint efforts of these manufacturers will truly promote the healthy prosperity of a technology and an ecology.
Liu Jianye said that China Unicom's entry into LoRa has no fundamental technical problems. In this cooperation, ZTE Cara provides technical support for the LoRa IoT connection management platform, serialized gateways, and LoRa IoT solutions, and opens chip modules, open terminal access, open gateway access, and open platform docking to help things Scale development of networking applications; at the same time, open CLAA standard specifications and interface development, build a close IoT ecosystem with more industry chain enterprises and manufacturers, and continue to expand ecological influence.
At the same time, the dance of LoRa and NB-IoT will also squeeze the living space of other IoT technologies. In most sub-fields of the pan-technology and Internet industries, there will be such a scenario: the market leader and the second child compete fiercely, and then grow bigger together, the third and the fourth will usually suffer a lot of trouble. When LoRa can squeeze out other technologies and share the market with NB-IoT, it will also have the opportunity to cut a large share of this cake.
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