Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) Overview – Post from Grandmetric Advisor

Narrowband Internet of Things (Narrowband IoT or simply NB-IoT) is a secure, reliable, and efficient type of Low-Power Wide-Area (LPWA) Technology that was standardized by 3GPP in Release 13 (LTE Advanced Pro) and uses licensed spectrum. Benefits of NB-IoT include:

• low power consumption (device battery can last up to 10 year)
• massive connections (tens of thousands of devices per base station)
• long range (about 5 km in dense urban areas and about 50 km in rural area)
• good signal penetration (can reach elevators inside buildings as well as basement and underground car parks)
• low device cost (less than 5 US$ per module)
• low connectivity cost (few US dollars per year)

The figure below illustrates the benefits of NB-IoT. Source: u-blox

NB-IoT is adapted by key players, which led to a mature ecosystem as well as commercial launch in many countries. Players include:

• Telecommunications Equipment Vendors: Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, etc
• Chipset vendors: Qualcomm, MediaTek, Huawei, sequans, etc
• Module manufacturer: u-blox, Quectel, Gemalto, etc
• MNOs: Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, China Mobile, Orange, STC, Etisalat, etc

Additional information is available in the presentation.

If you are interested in reading more about technical aspects of Narrowband IoT operation – go to our other post on NB-IoT here. For more info on wireless technologies that influence the IoT landscape, we recommend our blogposts on Low Power Wide Area Networks and eMTC for further reading.

References:

[1] http://www.3gpp.org/news-events/3gpp-news/1785-nb_iot_complete

[2] http://www.hte.hu/documents/2105310/2976182/12_03_Szathmary_Gyula.pdf

[3] https://www.gsma.com/iot/mobile-iot-commercial-launches/