China Tower published an announcement that it will provide sites support service for constructing Alibaba IoT networking across the country, which means that operators are no longer the only choice of nationwide IoT platforms, and there will be more ambitious challengers with tens of billions of connecting resources in China’s IoT market.
According to the cooperation agreement, both two companies will fully make use of their advantages in respective resources, technology, and ecological advantages to promote integration and innovation, seize new opportunities to create new values. Besides, Alibaba will depend on nearly 1.9 million sites and supporting facilities across the country to strengthen its edge computing capabilities as well as provide a cloud computing service system integrating cloud service which helps connect all things to the cloud. All the solutions and applications in smart cities, smart transportation, smart agriculture. and environmental brain will be accelerated to implement.
The cooperation will also bring Alibaba the loT coverage ability on a national scale. In terms of technology selection, LoRa accords with the needs of Ali and China Tower more than NB-IoT.
According to insiders, LoRa has a lower cost, more flexible networking compared to NB-IoT, no need for 4G, other cellular networks, and spectrum authorization, which is very suitable for Ali and China Tower to create a national Internet of Things network.