The 2017 China Telecommunication Industry IoT Conference was held on April 17. From the perspective of industry investment, Ma Jun, director assistant of Founder Securities Research Institute, chief analyst of China's communications industry said IoT will play a significant role in the economic structure transition and industry upgrade happening in China, and capture huge market share in various fields. The commercially available IoT will appear in China in 2017.
This conclusion came from three facts, according to Mr. Ma. 3GPP completed the standardization of NB-IoT last year; China's three state-owned telecom operators have put NB-IoT into their planning, in which they invested heavily; IoT has been included in the emerging industry strategic planning of the Chinese central and local governments.
What has slowed the development of IoT including NB-IoT is probably the cost. Ma Jun claimed that NB-IoT may consume more costs in chips and modules, compared with LoRa in the short run, but a sharp decline is likely to happen to the costs of NB-IoT with rising shipped chips and modules, given the mighty leader of the NB-IoT standardization.