Talking gadgets, smarter cities

New IoT technology set to link up billions of electronic appliances

China's telecom gurus have pledged to uphold the development of the Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT), an emerging but fast-growing technology that enables the connection of billions of electronic appliances, shared bikes and street lamps into the internet and allows for a handy retrieval of the massive trove of data generated.

With the technology projected to support more than half of all IoT connections, China is already at the forefront in terms of network launches, grooming ecosystem developer partners and drawing up industry standards, said Wen Ku, head of the information and communication development department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.