Cellular Antennas

What does cellular IoT technology mean?

Everyone is talking about 5G, especially cellular IoT technology. According to Google’s “5G IoT” strategy, 5G could unlock highly sought-after applications in the IoT, such as automated lifecycle management, network slicing, software-defined networking, and cloud-optimized distributed network applications.

5G is rapidly becoming a major catalyst for the next generation of IoT device and platform architectures, enabling us to build a new generation of IoT connectivity technologies at a much larger scale.

The popularity of IoT devices has led to the rise of low-power wide area networks, including NB-IoT, SigFox, LORA, and Weightless.

Traditional cellular technologies, such as LTE networks, consume too much power. In addition, they are not suitable for applications with low data transfer volumes.

For example, meters that read water levels, gas consumption, or power usage. The rise of low-power cellular networks brings technical support for this application.

4G LTE CAT-1

Cat-1 is currently the only fully available cellular IoT technology. The main attraction of Cat-1 is that it has been standardized, and, more importantly, it is very easy to switch to a Cat-1 network. Experts predict that as 3G and 4G technologies disappear, Cat-1 and Cat-M1 networks will take their place.

4G LTE CAT-0

For LTE-based IoT networks to connect successfully, CAT-0 needs to have the following characteristics.

Long battery life, low cost, support for many device connections, enhanced coverage (e.g., better signal penetration through walls), remote/broadcast.

Cat-0 is optimized for cost because it eliminates features that support the high data rate requirements of Cat-1 (dual receiver chains, duplex filters). While CAT-1 is replacing 3G, CAT-0 is a lower-cost connectivity technology, with CAT-M replacing 2G.

4G LTE  CAT-M1 / CAT-M / LTE-M

Cat-M (officially known as LTE Cat-M1) is often seen as a second-generation LTE chip built for IoT applications. It reduces the cost and power consumption of the initial Cat-0 setup phase. By limiting the maximum system bandwidth to 1.4 MHz (instead of Cat-0’s 20 MHz), Cat-M has specific use cases for LPWAN applications, such as smart metering, which requires only a small amount of data transmission.

The real advantage of Cat-M over other technologies is that Cat-M is compatible with existing LTE networks. This is good news for carriers like Verizon and AT&T, as they do not need to rebuild their antennas. Verizon and AT & T argue that Cat-M is the best option. Given the backward compatibility of Cat-M, it is almost certain that 5G and LTE technologies will coexist in the 2120s.

NB-IoT/ CAT-M2

NB-IoT (also known as Cat-M2) has a similar role to Cat-M; however, it uses DSSS modulation. As a result, NB-IoT does not operate in the LTE band, so providers must incur higher upfront costs to deploy NB-IoT.

Nonetheless, NB-IoT is considered a cheaper technology because it does not need a gateway. Other infrastructures typically have gateways that aggregate sensor data, and then the gateways communicate with a master server. However, NB-IoT technology sends sensor data directly to the master server. Therefore, Huawei, Ericsson, Qualcomm, and Vodafone are actively investing in commercial applications of NB-IoT.

GSM/EC-GSM (formerly EC-EGPRS)

EC stands for Extended Coverage. EC-GSM is an IoT-optimized GSM network and is the wireless protocol used by 80% of smartphones. As the name implies, EC-GSM can be deployed in existing GSM networks and offers tremendous advantages in terms of usability and modularity, as simple software can implement EC-GSM connectivity in 2G, 3G, and 4G networks.

EC-GSM is also used in non-Western regions such as Malaysia, Africa, and Middle East countries. Ericsson, Intel, and Orange are said to have completed field trials of EC-GSM earlier this year. However, EC-GSM does not have as much buzz as Cat-M or NB-IoT.

5G Cellular IoT

Unlike the cellular IoT technologies discussed earlier, 5G has not yet been formalized. The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) is driving the specification of 5G technology, which will be 40 times faster than 4G while supporting millions of connections per square kilometer.

5G already enables high bandwidth, ultra high definition (4K) streaming, connectivity for self-driving cars, and VR/AR applications. One thing is clear: there is no limit to what wonders 5G will add to the future!

Why should we care about these cellular network technologies?

For operators, the technology needs to be chosen for deployment to meet narrowband IoT applications.

For others, it is important to understand that these different communications technologies do not have to be mutually exclusive.

The IoT has a wide range of applications. Just like real-time monitoring, where the amount of data is large, and high bandwidth is required; for asset tracking, where data throughput is small, but there is inevitably a lot of switching as objects move; smart meters and many smart city use cases require small data transfers once or twice a day ……

This means that no technology can meet IoT devices’ specific needs.