NB-IoT Street Lighting in China

In the past, sodium lamps have been expensive to install and maintain, requiring manual inspection and manual controls.

Across China, these traditional lighting methods are being replaced by intelligent LED lighting. LED lighting is easier to control and cheaper to operate, and by connecting the lamps to a control center, dynamic control can be achieved, removing the need for manual inspections and interventions.

China Mobile has a 2G/GPRS powered smart street lighting service already available. This has been deployed in a number of cities including the city of Longnan, the city of Bahzou and the Wudang district of the city of Guizhou. The China Mobile solution can integrate various kinds of sensors into the connected street lamp, including environmental, traffic and security monitoring, making full use of the connectivity nodes.

• [Cost Reduction - Maintenance]
  Cost Reduction – A quicker, simpler way to manage the streetlights across the different pilot implementations has led to reduced management and maintenance costs. The ability to remotely monitor the status of streetlights, change the lighting up time or lighting intensity means that energy bills are lower and the cost of manual inspections is much reduced.
• [Data Management - Data Integration]
  Sensor & Data Integration – The integration of sensors into the light pole to monitor environmental conditions or traffic is simple to achieve, as they are able to share the same connection and relay data to the same management platform. This means all the sensor and lighting data can be seen in the same place. In addition, via API access, this data is accessible to China Mobiles customers, so that they can integrate the data into their own platforms and provide their own unique services and analysis on their local environment.
• [Cost Reduction - Energy]
  Energy Saving – One of the core benefits of LED bulbs is low energy consumption. NB-IoT is also optimized for energy consumption, and together they make a good fit. By building a connected streetlight that has minimal energy needs, the costs of running lights across a city can be significantly reduced.