Business Model of NB-IoT
Published:
Role: Prototype Developer and Analyst
Client: Tarent and Deutsche Telekom
Sector: Smart City & IoT
Duration: October 2017 – March 2018
🎯 Objective
This project aimed to support machine-to-machine (M2M) communication at scale, targeting over 3 billion connections by leveraging low-power wide area (LPWA) solutions using NB-IoT. The focus was on both technical prototyping and business modeling to demonstrate the real-world potential of NB-IoT integration.
🛠 Responsibilities
- Set up a CoAP server and enabled NB-IoT communication through T-Mobile’s Cloud of Things platform.
- Identified and analyzed the types of CoAP requests sent from NB-IoT modules.
- Implemented CoAP protocol integration with T-Mobile’s cloud environment.
- Prototyped Firmware Over-The-Air (FOTA) update workflows for NB-IoT devices.
- Designed and built a “bagger” business model prototype, integrating sensors, Raspberry Pi, and cloud services to demonstrate use-case viability.
🧪 Technologies Used
- Hardware: EVK-N2 NB-IoT Evaluation Kit, Raspberry Pi Model B, Arduino, temperature sensors, magnet sensors, infrared receiver/transmitter
- Software: CoAP (RFC 7252), Python CoAP libraries, Copper (CU) plugin, Arduino IDE (C/C++), Pycharm, Raspberry Pi (Python)
💡 Outcome
The prototype showcased practical NB-IoT applications and helped shape the business case and technical feasibility for integrating CoAP-based IoT solutions within Deutsche Telekom’s smart city offerings.