"Verizon has become the third operator to start a commercial NB-IoT network in the US. Earlier, AT&T started commercial NB-IoT operations in April 2019, while T-Mobile went live in July 2018. All three networks are using guard band spectrum, to avoid interference with smartphone traffic and maximize spectrum utilization. The telecom giant will test and qualify Telit, SIMCOM, and Quectel modules for the newly launched network. Verizon already has LTE-M network, along with voice support. It plans to utilize NB-IoT network for stationary IoT devices with low bandwidth needs, while LTE-M will cater to mission-critical IoT applications with marginally higher bandwidth needs. NB-IoT will be critical to applications like smart cities, smart meters, agriculture, and smart buildings." – Hanish Bhatia