China's bicycle-sharing start-up ofo on February 22 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 bicycle 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.

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

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

(Xinhua News Agency February 22, 2017)