This article is our second in a series aimed at helping you explore technologies that can improve your product designs. You can find the previous article here. Check back regularly for new entries in the series.
How to Include NB-IoT In Your Product
As we talked about in our last article, the Internet of Things (IoT) is booming globally and is expected to be a US$1.6 trillion market by 2025. So it’s little wonder that designers and manufacturers want to be in the IoT space.
There are two communication protocols—LTE-M/Cat-M1 and narrowband IoT (NB-IoT/Cat-NB1)—that have come to the fore to enable machine-to-machine (M2M) cellular communication for IoT applications. While both are low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technologies and are complementary, it’s essential to understand the differences and know which one is right for your application.
Since we’ve already looked at the capabilities of Cat-M1, let’s use that as a baseline for comparison. How does Cat-NB1 stack up against Cat-M1?
How Does Cat-NB1 Compare to Cat-M1?
For a start, Cat-NB1 is an even lower power option than Cat-M1, and it has a more extended range. Cat-NB1 devices can be relied upon to send burst signals for up to 10 years without a battery replacement. Cat NB1 is also better able to penetrate buildings and radio-challenged environments like basements, making Cat-NB1 the best choice for simple sensor and metering applications (like residential gas, water, and heat). For applications requiring transmission of more than a few hundred bytes of data, Cat M1 remains the better choice.
In addition to lower power, Cat-NB1 also as a lower throughput (in the tens of kbps range) than Cat M1 due to smaller utilized bandwidth (180 kHz for Cat-NB1 vs 1.4 MHz for Cat-M1). This allows Cat-NB1 to be deployed even in guard-band of an LTE carrier and to use otherwise unused spectrum. Due to its narrow bandwidth, Cat-NB1 should also be able to support a higher density of connected devices, particularly ultra-low complexity devices.
However, because of this narrower bandwidth, Cat-NB1 does have a higher latency than Cat M1. There can be a several second delay to send/receive messages with Cat-NB1, versus the up to 1 Mbps possible with Cat-M1. The higher latency of Cat-NB1 should be kept in mind when you decide to incorporate it into your product.
An advantage of this narrower bandwidth, however, is that Cat-NB1 carrier pricing should be cheaper from a service point of view than Cat-M1. Aim to choose a carrier partner that has flexible data and pricing so that you can scale up or down as necessary.
Globally, 140 operators in 69 countries are actively investing in NB-IoT networks. 88 operators in 50 countries have already launched their networks, with another 28 countries having only NB-IoT networks active and available.
Coverage Areas Around the World
Cat-NB1 coverage is not yet widespread in Canada, but it is coming. In May 2019, Rogers announced plans to launch a Cat-NB1/NB-IoT network using Ericsson equipment as complementary to its existing national LTE and LTE-M networks. In doing so, Rogers emphasized that access to low power, wide area Cat-NB1 networks would allow for innovative IoT solutions for Canadian businesses, 81% of whom have already begun adopting IoT solutions. Rogers envisions their Cat-NB1 network being most useful for asset monitoring, industrial automation, smart meters and smart cities.
Elsewhere in the world, however, Cat-NB1 networks are more widespread and better established. In the United States, Verizon’s NB-IoT Network is available coast-to-coast, covering more than 92% of the US population. In Russia, four national mobile network operators provide Cat-NB1 networks for IoT. Likewise, in China, three national mobile network operators provide Cat-NB1 networks for IoT.
Globally, 140 operators in 69 countries are actively investing in NB-IoT networks. 88 operators in 50 countries have already launched their networks, with another 28 countries having only NB-IoT networks active and available.
Usage Cases
As already mentioned, the most common use cases of Cat-NB1 include utility meters and sensors.
Cat-NB1 typically uses UDP connections, rather than TCP. Cat-NB1 takes advantage of UDP’s simpler, connectionless Internet protocol and fast, efficient transmission of messages as packets in chunks.
Cat-NB1 is suitable for “chirp” type messaging, such as with lightweight messaging protocols like MQTT, where there are small payloads and short responses.
The format is also suited to very large deployments of ultra-low complexity devices with small payloads, such as temperature sensor nodes deployed across a city, or in agricultural applications for crop monitoring.
Cat-NB1 is also an excellent choice to consider for replacement of LoRa or Sigfox deployments.
And there are already Cat-NB2 modules that are becoming available, which provide similar functions as Cat-NB1 but with improved throughput of 100+ kbps.
Cat-NB1 is suitable for “chirp” type messaging, such as with lightweight messaging protocols like MQTT, where there are small payloads and short responses.
Conclusion
While Cat-NB1 and Cat-M1 have become the de-facto connectivity solution for IoT products, it’s important to understand their different strengths when choosing which solution is right for your application. It’s not a matter of which is ‘better’ than the other but instead choosing the one that works best for the product you are designing.
We hope that our articles on Cat-NB1 and Cat-M1 will help you compare both solutions equally and make the right decision for your technology.
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