After opening T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas last year, T-Mo today announced that it’s making another move in that city.

T-Mobile is partnering with the City of Las Vegas to deploy Internet of Things (IoT) in the city. This comes following T-Mobile’s successful Narrowband IoT field tests on a live commercial network, something that T-Mobile says it’s the first carrier in North America to have done.

These Narrowband IoT tests, which were conducted in partnership with Qualcomm and Ericsson, were completed across multiple sites on T-Mobile’s LTE network in Las Vegas using 200Khz of AWS spectrum. Narrowband IoT is an evolution of LTE tech and uses small slices of dedicated spectrum.

T-Mobile says that it and the City of Las Vegas are trying out several IoT projects using Narrowband IoT. These include flood and storm drainage sensors to provide early warnings for Las Vegas residents, smart city lighting that’ll power LED lights, and sensors that’ll be placed atop smart city light poles and monitor temperature, humidity, and environmental gases.

T-Mo has been placing a focus on IoT over the past year or so by doing things like launching IoT Access packs and offering free 2G service to AT&T IoT customers. Now its utilizing its LTE network for Narrowband IoT in anticipation that IoT usage will grow in the coming years. This serves as another way for T-Mobile to grow beyond the standard smartphone business.

Source: T-Mobile