AT&T to discontinue NB-IoT, but T-Mobile and Verizon keep the faith

AT&T said it will decommission its narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) network next year. But Verizon and T-Mobile are forging ahead with their NB-IoT offerings.

AT&T's decision comes as the market for IoT services continues to evolve. NB-IoT is one of several IoT networking flavors, but it hasn't gained much traction outside of China. Meanwhile, other IoT networking technologies including LoRa, LTE-M and 5G RedCap are making headway.

"We are improving our Internet of things (IoT) services for business customers by moving from Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) to the LTE-M network," AT&T said in a statement first reported by RCR Wireless News. "This change will provide more data capacity for both fixed and mobile devices. As a result, we've stopped the certification of new NB-IoT devices and the sale of data plans utilizing the NB-IoT network. We're working closely with customers to make this process as seamless as possible."

AT&T added that it's working with its existing NB-IoT customers to transition them to LTE-M while it phases out and decommissions its NB-IoT network. The operator declined to answer questions about how many NB-IoT customers it has, though it reported a total of 128 million "connected devices" on its network earlier this year. Such devices include monitoring devices and automobile systems, among others.

AT&T said it hopes to finish decommissioning its NB-IoT network by the first quarter of 2025.

AT&T launched its NB-IoT network in 2019 as a complement to the LTE-M IoT network it launched in 2017.

NB-IoT apathy

AT&T isn't the only big wireless network operator to shift away from NB-IoT. Japan's Docomo shut off its NB-IoT network in 2020, and officials from Orange have said they prefer other options.

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