In Fuzhou's newest neighborhood, local residents can walk into an elevator, scan their faces, and sit back and wait for the elevator to take them to their floor automatically.

This new development is called Maweimingcheng International Smart Community, the city's first residential complex built based on Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) technology.

The NB-IoT applications could be spotted everywhere in the community, which include intelligent water meters, lamps, manhole covers and parking lots.

The NB-loT network, developed by China Telecommunications Corp, the country's third largest mobile carrier, enables the connection of billions of gadgets through the internet and allows for a handy retrieval of the massive trove of data generated.

As a result of that, the community can be monitored and managed much more easily, according to a staff member at China Telecom's Fujian branch.

“The community can be monitored via its comprehensive administrative platform built based on NB-IoT technology,” he said, adding that various hidden perils will be found and solved quickly.

The community has been equipped with 12 smart manhole covers, 20 lamps and over 1,600 smart water meters to date and is planned to be built to a model IoT project in the Mawei district in Fuzhou, home to a 54 billion yuan ($8 billion) IoT industry, which accounts for three-quarters of the total in the province.

Working staffs installs smart manhole covers in the Maweimingcheng International Smart Community, the first community built based on the technologies of the Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT), in Fuzhou, provincial capital of Southeast China’s Fujian province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]