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China's bicyle-sharing firm gets tech upgrade

Xinhua, February 22, 2017 Adjust font size:

China's bicyle-sharing start-up ofo on Wednesday partnered with two Chinese telecom companies -- Huawei and China Telecom to improve its connectivity.

The firms will begin research on narrow band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) solutions for smart bicyle locks to improve the riding experience.

The NB-loT technology will allow connections between IoT devices faster and on a wider range. The connection also consumes less energy.

Ofo founder and CEO Dai Wei said the upgrade will solve the problems with smart locks.

Bicyle-sharing is the latest tech craze in China. Dai pioneered the service when he released the first station-less and app-enabled bicyles in Peking University in June 2015. Users can search for a bicyle and unlock it through a smart phone app.

Ofo says it has bicyles in 40 cities with a customer base of 15 million. Endi