Telia to connect 900,000 NB-IoT electricity meters for One Nordic

The deal, over a period of 10 years, is the largest to date using Telia’s recently launched Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) network. NB-IoT is a low-power-wide-area technology designed to deliver small amounts of IoT data on a massive scale.

“ONE Nordic needed a flexible, future-proof solution that was economically competitive”, says Anders Malmberg, Managing Director Smart Metering at ONE Nordic. “When connecting meters across large geographic areas, economic considerations go far beyond the connectivity alone. Telia is able to provide a high performance fully-managed network that support us in our ambition to focus on delivering first-class services to Ellevio.”

“NB-IoT technology gives us broader and deeper coverage, which is ideal for rural and deep indoor locations. This allows enhanced machine-to-machine communication that fits perfectly with our smart grid development. It will also allow us to develop and deploy a wide range of new IoT devices and services for our customers in the future”, says Johan Svensson Program Manager at Ellevio.

Telia was the first to launch NB-IoT in the Nordics in late 2017. The NB-IoT standard was defined by the 3GPP and builds on the security and stability of the LTE standard. It also forms part of the 3GPPs recommendation as the massive component of 5G. 

“NB-IoT is opening up a lot of new use cases for us”, say Björn Hansen, Head of IoT, Division X, Telia Company. “It provides deep indoor coverage, which is ideal for connecting utility meters underground or inside buildings. It also lets us deliver economies of scale that weren’t previously possible. We’re really pleased to be able to support ONE Nordic on this rollout and are excited to be part of the next generation of smart metering solutions for Ellevio”.

The rollout of new meters will begin in the spring of 2020 and will continue until the end of 2023. The ONE Nordic contract is for a period of 10 years with an option for a further 6 years.