Nokia has partnered up with EDF to test various types of IoT technology for the different markets that would benefit from it, such as cellular. The testing will take place in France at Nokia’s TestHub Service’s Device Testing Lab, where it will work with the French power utility company EDF to test things like IoT and M2M objects, different types of chipsets, a collection of modules and even user devices, which likely means smartphones.
All devices will be tested on a varied set of network frequencies, and on actual network infrastructure according to Nokia, which should benefit the two companies as it will seemingly provide better results than testing these technologies in a simulated network and allow them to lower the amount of risks that might occur when and if introducing such technology on a widespread commercial scale. Nokia’s goal seems mainly to be the ability to bring some more understanding of how these technologies will work when used by industries as Nokia mentions that not many Industrial networks are using IoT technology. With the use of such technology in its infancy, doing more testing would allow Nokia’s commercial customers to have a better understanding of how all of the technology before making a “substantial investment” in devices that would be set up as part of the company infrastructure, while also being able to evaluate the technology now as opposed to later when the technology is used by more companies.
For EDF, Nokia will be the only partner during testing, and will help EDF in figuring out how to incorporate emerging IoT technologies into its infrastructure and deploying the technology out to the networks it uses. The testing will also explore the use of LWPA (low power wide area) technologies and could lead to the use of millions of IoT sensors and other IoT devices to connect various parts of the network and infrastructure, though how exactly the technology might all be used in conjunction with EDF specifically was not mentioned, likely because everything is still in the early stages leading up to the beginning of the testing phase for the company. The testing is said to be “comprehensive” and a first of its kind for the industry.