Internet of Things · 2018-10-19

Twilio & T-Mobile partner to introduce developer platform Twilio Narrowband – IoT

This article was 1st published on our sister Site, The Internet Of All Things.

Cloud communications platform Twilio and T-Mobile have decided to build on their 2-year old relationship. Twilio has created a developer platform for the T-Mobile Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) network.

The announcement was made today at SIGNAL, Twilio’s customer and developer conference.

What is Twilio Narrowband?

It’s the first developer platform for NB-IoT in the US, claimed Twilio, a cellular low-power wide-area network technology, which “will substantially reduce prices and increase battery life for intermittent low-bandwidth connections.” Incidentally, Twilio also announced the Twilio Breakout Software Development Kit (SDK) to help developers start taking advantage of the optimisations offered by NB-IoT networks.

NB-IoT was designed for the majority of IoT devices that don’t need a lot of bandwidth. With this tech, devices consume a fraction of the battery power they do with previous cellular M2M devices, enabling connectivity at a fraction of the cost. NB-IoT is built for smaller data packets, such as timestamps, GPS coordinates and status updates for a variety of industries, from smart metering to health device monitoring.

“Together with Twilio, the Un-carrier is unleashing developers and building an entirely new ecosystem for IoT solutions,” said John Legere, Chief Executive Officer of T-Mobile, in the press statement.

Twilio Narrowband Developer Platform has 3 components:

    • Narrowband SIMs:

Since the introduction of Twilio Programmable Wireless two years ago, Twilio has focused on getting developers started quickly with cellular connectivity, instant self-service onboarding, no contracts required and two-day shipping in the US

    • Twilio Narrowband IoT Developer Kit:

A limited supply developer kit including an Arduino-based development board and Grove sensors specifically chosen for innovative low-powered wide-area solutions. It also features the u-blox LTE Cat NB1 SARA‑N410 hardware module, certified for the T-Mobile Narrowband network.

    • Twilio Breakout SDK:

Twilio Breakout SDK reduces the complexity of hardware and heterogeneity of different networks, allowing developers to focus on creating their narrowband IoT device deployment. The Breakout SDK handles tasks such as network registration and intelligently optimizes communication between devices and cloud services based on the network capability requirements across IP, Non-IP and SMS.

“The introduction of T-Mobile’s Narrowband IoT network provides a tremendous opportunity for developers who are innovating and building new categories of devices that don’t exist today,” said Chetan Chaudhary, General Manager and Vice-president of IoT at Twilio. “By applying Twilio’s proven approach for cellular IoT connectivity to Narrowband, it will remove barriers so developers can focus on building devices and dreaming up new use cases that don’t yet exist. We can’t wait to see what you build!”

The two companies first teamed up back in 2016 with the launch of developer tools for cellular IoT, opening up the opportunity for IoT solution developers to build in cellular connectivity for the first time.

Twilio’s Narrowband Developer Platform will be available from Twilio in the US for beta access in early 2019. For more information, visit twilio.com/wireless/narrowband


 

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