What changes will China Unicom’s entry into LoRa bring to the IoT industry?

Last weekend, a big thing happened in the Internet of Things industry. China Unicom Internet of Things Company, ZTE Clara, 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 access LoRa gateways and terminal nodes that comply with the interface protocols recognized by both parties, and have the ability to “plug and play” after power-on. This product is designed to meet the rapidly growing customer demand for LoRa connection management platforms.

In recent years, the Internet of Things industry has developed rapidly and formed several seemingly incompatible standard systems. 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 Kara and Alibaba, while Semtech is the core chip supplier. Recently, Tencent also announced its participation, forming an obvious Internet camp.

The significance of the three-party cooperation is that the pair of CPs NB-IoT and LoRa are not completely antagonistic and competitive under the general trend of the Internet of Things blowout, but are more like a win-win competitive relationship. When did the collaboration start? How big will it be? How long can it last? What kind of industrial changes might it bring? C114 explains it one by one for you.

Why did China Unicom enter LoRa?

To answer the above questions, we must first understand why China Unicom entered LoRa. Just recently, China Unicom launched a tender for 3 million NB-IoT modules, setting an industry record, which shows the intensity and determination of its investment in NB-IoT. At the same time, it announced its entry into LoRa. Those who don’t know may lament that China Unicom is indeed rich and willful after the mixed-ownership reform.

However, the author has previously learned that NB-IoT applications have just started this year and it is difficult to achieve such a large scale. China Unicom’s centralized procurement should be implemented in batches and 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 was only 11.6 billion yuan, and it will also adopt a more cautious attitude towards investment in the Internet of Things field.

Previous market analysis has predicted that by 2025, IoT connection investment will account for 22% of operators’ mobile business investment, while 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 low investment, and explore new business opportunities.

The Internet of Things has become a powerful tool for various industries to upgrade, transform and enhance competitiveness, and the demand for connectivity is very strong. Last year, Telecom’s centralized purchasing price for NB-IoT modules was 66 yuan. This year, China Unicom has limited the price to 35 yuan. There is limited room to further lower costs in the short term. In contrast, the entire LoRa industry chain has a cost advantage, which is conducive to low-cost and flexible deployment by government and enterprise customers in the early stage. In addition, China Unicom’s own efforts to tap IoT customers one by one will also incur greater market costs. “To meet the rapid growth of customers’ demand for LoRa connection management platform.” Chen Xiaotian, general manager of China Unicom Internet of Things Company, actually said it very clearly.

Liu Jianye, general manager of ZTE Clara, revealed to C114 that the cooperation is by no means a whim. The company and China Unicom have been communicating for more than a year. The scope of cooperation will be very wide, including China Unicom using the existing LoRa network of its partners to serve customers, or jointly building the network. It is very flexible and can be implemented by companies in various provinces and cities.

Liu Jianye pointed out that this cooperation is not a transition plan waiting for the NB-IoT network to mature. These two systems compete in some areas, but they also have their own relatively clear spheres of influence. In scenarios such as communities, parking lots, farms, and industrial parks, LoRa deployment is more flexible, independent, and low-cost, making it more popular among customers. “I think China Unicom will flexibly choose different IoT access methods based on customer needs in the future. The cooperation will be long-term and sustainable.”

Significantly beneficial to the LoRa industry

In the Chinese market, strong support from the telecom camp, favorable policies, and NB-IoT itself as a mobile cellular network has the characteristics of wide coverage, mobility, and large connections, which can bring more abundant application scenarios and become the mainstream connection of the Internet of Things. technology. However, NB-IoT cannot take over the Internet of Things, and one or more technologies will inevitably take away some market share.

IoT technologies such as eMTC, LoRa, and sigfox each have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they also have their own supporters. At the beginning of this year, LoRa was once in an extremely dangerous situation because of the “Technical Requirements for Micropower Short-Distance Radio Transmission Equipment (Draft for Comments)” issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which strictly restricted unauthorized frequency points. However, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has fully absorbed the opinions of the industry, which has brought about a positive turn. Liu Jianye revealed that the formal plan is expected to be released by the end of the year and will not restrict the development of LoRa.

Backed by ZTE’s strong communication technology strength and the application ecological support of Internet giants such as Alibaba and Tencent, LoRa has already occupied an industrial ecological advantage compared to technical systems such as sigfox, and China Unicom’s entry has brought great benefits to the LoRa industry. Great encouragement. China Unicom’s IoT brand, technology and channel resources are all lacking among 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 applications are very wide, and the potential is endless. Most of the industry chains are small and medium-sized manufacturers. The support of the giants means that they are optimistic about the market prospects. They choose sides. A benchmark for market expansion. The combined efforts of these manufacturers will truly promote the healthy prosperity of a technology and an ecosystem.

Liu Jianye said that there are no fundamental technical problems for China Unicom to enter LoRa. In this cooperation, ZTE Clara provides technical support for the LoRa IoT connection management platform, a series of gateways and LoRa IoT solutions, and provides open chip modules, open terminal access, open gateway access, and open platform docking to help IoT The scale of networking applications is developing; at the same time, CLAA standard specifications and interface development are open to build a close IoT ecosystem with more industry chain enterprises and manufacturers, and continue to expand ecological influence.

At the same time, the dance between LoRa and NB-IoT will also squeeze the living space of other IoT technologies. In most subdivided areas of the pan-tech and Internet industries, this scenario will occur: the market leader and the second-ranked player compete fiercely, and then they will grow bigger together, and the third-ranked and fourth-ranked ones will usually suffer the consequences. When LoRa can crowd out other technologies and share the market with NB-IoT, it will have the opportunity to cut a large share of this cake.