Verizon Business has merged a customer-facing network, Quectel hardware, and intelligence capabilities for IoT applications in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare, utilities, transportation, retail, supply chain, and public safety.

This means that Verizon-certified IoT devices can now connect to the company’s US 5G nationwide network using current compatible data plans, Quectel’s low-cost narrowband IoT module has been certified on Verizon’s network, and intelligence capabilities combine network and device analytics on a single dashboard are now available for customer trials, all through Verizon ThingSpace, the company’s IoT marketplace and management platform.

Early next year, IoT devices and plans compatible with 5G ultra-wideband are scheduled.

TJ Fox, senior vice president at Verizon Business, stated, “Verizon Business is a single-provider destination for IoT, with solutions spanning broadband and narrowband, 5G and LTE, and intelligence, hardware, and management for applications across industries.” “But, it’s not just the expanded breadth of offerings; it’s also the lower costs, increased power efficiency, and improved accessibility.” Broadband IoT on 5G countrywide, as well as new narrowband IoT devices in the sub-four-dollar range, with plans starting at $1, can help open up IoT to new users, new use cases, and innovative developers.

The ThingSpace Intelligence suite combines existing IoT services such as the Intelligence analytics dashboard, SIM Secure, device diagnostics, and location services, as well as new features, to enable customers to guard against, identify, and respond to devices and connectivity issues and threats. These features are now available for testing, with commercial availability anticipated later this year:

Wireless network performance, is an analytics-as-a-service solution for coverage, outages, event notifications, service notifications, and performance metrics. During severe weather events such as hurricanes, for example, customers might check network status as well as service and repair tickets.

Anomaly detection, a tool that uses machine learning to warn customers of unusual device behavior, will be available in Q4 2021. Users, for example, may notice that a gadget is consuming unusually large quantities of data, indicating that it has been compromised.

Network-coordinated firmware-over-the-air management is a software management tool built for 5G huge IoT devices that checks for reachability when managing firmware upgrades, resulting in greater device compliance ratios. Users will know, for example, that some devices’ firmware could not be upgraded because they were turned off or had a similar interruption, allowing them to coordinate and manage upgrades.

ThingSpace Analytics engine, a solution that combines network and device analytics for predictive maintenance and performance monitoring and alerting. This application creates predicted visualizations of devices and visibility into the health and performance of IoT connections by monitoring and analyzing millions of signals on Verizon’s networks to rule out connection difficulties. Users, for example, can view data usage trends and make changes to data plans, budgets, or device setups to make them more efficient.

Verizon certified Quectel’s BC660K-GL module, making the carrier the first in the United States to activate the module on its nationwide narrowband IoT network. The Qualcomm 212 LTE IoT modem powers the module, which supports many frequency bands while consuming little power.

Its 17.7 by 15.8 by 2.0mm dimensions and low price of less than $4 make it suited for the launch of narrowband-IoT devices. Verizon’s connectivity plans will start at less than $1.

The module offers low power consumption for applications that are expected to run for 15 or 20 years without being touched, such as smart meters, HVAC units, air, and water quality monitors, manufacturing controls, smart lighting nodes, and municipal smart infrastructure, at a price that lowers entry barriers and opens up massive IoT possibilities.

“We’re delighted that our BC660K-GL module has been certified with Verizon so it can be enabled on their nationwide narrowband IoT network and form part of its single-provider offering,” said Patrick Qian, CEO of Quectel. “The ability to supply Verizon customers with the module at a very cost-effective rate alongside connectivity plans from Verizon for $1 is transformative and will make a huge variety of IoT use cases possible for the first time. We’re proud to be playing our part, along with Verizon and Qualcomm, in helping IoT innovators build a smarter world.”

Jeffery Torrance, senior vice president at Qualcomm, added: “Qualcomm Technologies is continuously optimizing and developing industry-leading technologies with high-performance, power-efficiency, and low-latency at the core. The Qualcomm 212 LTE IoT modem – the world’s most power-efficient NB-IoT chipset – supports the creation of new, global smart IoT devices and applications, equipped with cutting-edge power efficiency and LTE connectivity capabilities. We are pleased to see that Quectel’s module – BC660K-GL – based on Qualcomm Technologies’ 212 LTE IoT modem has received this important validation by Verizon to support the proliferation of next-generation, low-power global IoT devices.”