Telenor and Wireless Trondheim announced their partnership to set up IoT ProtoLab for doing IoT research and innovation, focusing on Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) technologies and applications — in early 2018.

Telenor said the IoT ProtoLab will be open to startups, developers and students looking to prototype and develop IoT products and services.

It will enable the exchange of data, sharing of experiences and collaboration with ongoing projects at the Telenor-NTNU AI-Lab in Norway.

“IoT ProtoLab will be a place for students, entrepreneurs and startups to experiment and prototype solutions using next-generation IoT technologies,” said Sigve Brekke, president and CEO of Telenor Group.

The IoT ProtoLab will be located at FAKTRY, the new community for ambitious startups in hardware-centric disciplines at Sluppen in Trondheim, which opens in November 2017.

Wireless Trondheim has enabled a city-wide IoT testbed and connected to Telenor’s non-commercial offering, Start IoT. This provides access to IoT devices, a physical LPWA pilot network and a backend system, prototyping and developing of IoT services at a relatively low cost. Wireless Trondheim will be responsible for the setup and the daily operation of the IoT ProtoLab.

In addition to its Start IoT offering, Telenor will provide mentorship, support internships in the lab and will collaborate with key partners for student projects and hackathons.