“等待NB IoT”可能是一部新的电信主题剧，以纪念塞缪尔·贝克特。它将有两位厌世的高管等待NB-IoT的到来时回忆起他们这个行业的时光。就像贝克特原著中的戈多一样，同名技术注定永远不会出现
. NB-IoT像孩子们的沙堡一样匆匆忙忙忙地堆一起，看上去就像一个湿漉漉的旧烂摊子，是一个有时自信的行业极度傲慢的例子。NB-IoT是NB-IoT的忠实拥趸之一，沃达丰的技术战略总监马特比尔表示，NB-IoT的授权频率回击，将为他们送行
“等待NB IoT”可能是一部新的电信主题剧，以纪念塞缪尔·贝克特。它将有两位厌世的高管等待NB-IoT的到来时回忆起他们这个行业的时光。就像贝克特原著中的戈多一样，同名技术注定永远不会出现
NB-IoT像孩子们的沙堡一样匆匆忙忙忙地堆一起，看上去就像一个湿漉漉的旧烂摊子，是一个有时自信的行业极度傲慢的例子。一项被大肆宣传并最终轰动一时的电信技术排名中，它一定是过去25年中争夺榜首的主要竞争者之一。目前全球范围内被关闭的3G可能是最接近的竞争对手
NB-IoT2017年前的过度快速发展是由于移动行业之外出现了连接各种基本“东西”的超高效技术，从工厂的温度监测器到家庭中的智能仪表。使用未经许可的频谱，这些竞争对手，如西格福克斯和劳拉，最初把希比吉比手机。NB-IoT是NB-IoT的忠实拥趸之一，沃达丰的技术战略总监马特?比尔（mattbeal）表示，NB-IoT的授权频率回击，将为他们送行
“NB-IoT将压垮Sigfox和LoRa，因为这意味着他们将不再需要，”Beal2016年4月向Light Reading吹嘘道，当时沃达丰英国总部开设了专门的NB-IoT实验室。当时，网络运营商称之为“低功耗广域网，包括2020年宽带网络连接”
不计划
它没有完全按计划进行。爱立信（Ericsson）6月份更新的移动报告（mobility reports）中估计，到2019年底，只有1亿个连接基于NB-IoT或LTE-M（一种更高速的替代方案）。尽管它将15亿个连接归为“蜂窝物联网”，但大多数都使用老式的2G
其他数据采集者也披露了类似的低数据。光明阅读的姊妹公司Omdia认为，NB-IoT的连接数量过去6个月的某个时候悄悄突破了1亿大关。Omdia分析师认为，如果这一数字高于爱立信的报告所暗示的金额，那么政府推动下，NB-IoT几乎所有业务目前都中国。Omdia的物联网主管乔希?布伊尔塔（Josh Builta）表示：“总体而言，这令人失望。”。“到目前为止，几乎所有的NB-IoT连接都中国境外，但数量并没有太大增长，一些运营商已经完全终止了NB-IoT服务。”
日本的NTT DoCoMo可能是放弃等待NB-IoT的最引人注目的服务提供商。今年3月，该公司透露将关闭一年前推出的服务，以便“集中管理资源”。建设中国第四个移动网络的美国运营商Dish5月放弃了自己的努力，这一过程中注销了2.53亿美元。咨询公司Webb Search Limited的首席执行官威廉?韦伯（williamwebb）说：“与‘数十亿’的预测相比，销售额太低，运营商几乎没有注意到。”
这清楚地总结了NTT DoCoMo和其他胆小鬼的主要问题之一——维持业务的成本对销售的影响微乎其微。以沃达丰为例，截至3月底，沃达丰共有8500万个物联网连接，但今年的物联网收入仅为7.83亿欧元（约合8.77亿美元），不到其集团销售额的2%。不过，从Omdia和2G网络的数据来看，大多数是爱立信的。运营商有理由让这些人继续使用生命维持系统，因为他们不仅支持物联网业务，而且支持语音和漫游服务
“Waiting for NB-IoT” could be a new telecom-themed play in tribute to Samuel Beckett. It would feature a couple of world-weary executives reminiscing about their time in the industry as they await the arrival of NB-IoT. Like Godot in the Beckett original, the eponymous technology would be destined never to show up.
Flung together as hastily as a child’s sandcastle, NB-IoT is looking like a soggy old mess and an example of extreme hubris by a sometimes cocksure industry. In a ranking of hyped telecom technologies that eventually bombed, it must be one of the lead contenders for the top spot in the last 25 years. 3G, now being switched off worldwide, is probably the closest rival.
NB-IoT’s overly swift development pre-2017 was triggered by the emergence outside the mobile industry of super-efficient technologies for connecting all manner of basic “things,” from temperature monitors in factories to smart meters in homes. Using unlicensed spectrum, these rivals, with names like Sigfox and LoRa, initially put the heebie-jeebies up cellular. NB-IoT, its licensed-frequency riposte, would see them off, said Matt Beal, the director of technology strategy for Vodafone, one of NB-IoT’s devotees.
“NB-IoT will crush Sigfox and LoRa because it means there will be no need for them,” Beal bragged to Light Reading in April 2016, as Vodafone opened a dedicated NB-IoT lab at its UK headquarters. The operator was then forecasting 1.4 billion connections based on so-called “low-power, wide-area network” (LPWAN) technologies, including NB-IoT, by 2020.
Not going to plan
It has not quite worked out as planned. In the June update of its mobility reports, which track telecom technologies, Ericsson reckoned only 100 million connections were based on either NB-IoT or LTE-M, a higher-speed alternative, at the end of 2019. Although it classed 1.5 billion connections as “cellular IoT,” most of these used good old-fashioned 2G.
Other data gatherers have disclosed similarly low figures. Omdia, a sister company to Light Reading, believes the number of NB-IoT connections crept past the 100 million mark at some point in the last six months. If that is higher than the amount implied by Ericsson’s report, Omdia analysts think nearly all the NB-IoT business is currently in China, aided by a government push. “It’s been disappointing, as a whole,” says Josh Builta, Omdia’s IoT director. “Outside of China, which is almost all the NB-IoT connections to date, numbers have not shown much growth and some operators have ended NB-IoT service altogether.”
Japan’s NTT DoCoMo is perhaps the most high-profile service provider to have given up waiting for NB-IoT. In March, it revealed it would switch off the service it had launched a year earlier so that it could “concentrate management resources.” Dish, the US operator building the country’s fourth mobile network, abandoned its own efforts in May, writing off $253 million in the process. “Sales are pitiful compared to the ‘billions’ forecast and revenues so small that the operators hardly notice,” says William Webb, the CEO of Webb Search Limited, a consulting business.
That neatly sums up one of the main problems for NTT DoCoMo and others with cold feet – the cost of maintaining a business that makes a negligible impact on sales. Vodafone, for instance, had 85 million IoT connections in total at the end of March but made only ?783 million ($877 million) in IoT revenues for the year, a figure equal to less than 2% of its group sales. Judging by Ericsson and Omdia data, most of these connections were on 2G networks, however. Operators can justify keeping those on life support because they prop up not only the IoT business but also voice and roaming services.
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