Has cellular IoT failed? Is it destined to fail? Big questions after AT&T axes NB-IoT

Does AT&T’s decision to ditch NB-IoT in the US, confirmed in RCR Wireless last week, spell the end for this clever and brave little IoT network technology? Just as a technology, the answer is: no, probably not – at least until LTE, whose ‘guardband’ it occupies, is retired in the middle of next decade. But as a global one, the answer is: yes, surely – that this finally explodes the hair-brained notion that NB-IoT was ever a global solution in its own right. It was, and will surely remain, a rather parochial affair. That must be its legacy; that, after nine years of stop-start momentum, NB-IoT has been revealed for what it really is: a useful technology for mostly-static in-market IoT monitoring.It was never really geared for inter-market IoT tracking – in part because of the limitations of its coverage footprint, especially in the US, but also because of its own mobility characteristics. LTE-M was always better for that. And yet the whole tragedy is that these twin technologies, NB-IoT...