[Norway, Oslo, December 16, 2016] Telia Norway and Huawei today announced the first commercial Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) network in the Nordics and the first commercial smart agriculture solution worldwide based on NB-IoT technology.

“This is the start of the rollout of a technology that represents a new industrial revolution. It also marks the beginning of a journey where Telia moves from being a pure mobile operator to becoming a modern technology company and a digital enabler in society,” said Abraham Foss, CEO of Telia Norway.

“What we witnessed today is only the beginning of the IoT era in Norway, where sensors are being used to connect society. As a strategic partner of the world’s leading telecom companies like Telia Norway, Huawei will continue to help operators build IoT solutions that will expand their business and make our world more connected,” said Mr. Zhou Xinmou, President of Huawei Telia Business Unit.

The smart agriculture solution launched today is the first of its kind in the world, and will make irrigation systems more efficient and accurate. Telia’s smart agriculture solution is developed in cooperation with the Norwegian company 7Sense, and is a system for monitoring irrigation systems used in agriculture. The water irrigator has a mounted sensor that detects its position using GPS, and will provide the operating status of the irrigation system through the use of various sensors. The sensor unit is connected to the mobile network with an NB-IoT module that sends data at regular intervals.

Norway has one of the highest machine-to-machine (M2M) penetration levels worldwide, and at the same time, the country has very high labor costs. Thus, there is a high demand for automation. NB-IoT is acknowledged as the best technology for LPWA (low power wide area) connections, with features such as deep coverage, massive connections, low device costs, long battery lifetime, carrier grade quality and high security.

Today’s announcement is only the beginning of an acceleration in the IoT markets for the public (parking, utility, metering), consumers (wearable, tracking), and for industry (agriculture, logistics, transportation).