Cellular Internet of Things

Technologies, Standards, and Performance

Olof Liberg, Marten Sundberg, Eric Wang, Johan Bergman, Joachim Sachs, Y.-P. Eric Wang

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780128124598
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Engineering General
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Cellular Internet of Things: Technologies, Standards and Performance gives insight into the recent work performed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to develop systems for the Cellular Internet of Things. It presents both the design of the new Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) technology and how GSM and LTE have evolved to provide Cellular Internet of Things services. The criteria used for the design and objectives of the standardization work are explained, and the technical details and performance of each technology is presented. This book discusses the overall competitive landscape for providing wireless connectivity, also introducing the most promising technologies in the market. Users will learn how cellular systems work and how they can be designed to cater to challenging new requirements that are emerging in the telecom industry, what the physical layers and procedures in idle and connected mode look like in EC-GSM-IoT, LTE-M, and NB-IoT, and what the expected performance of these new systems is in terms of expected coverage, battery lifetime, data throughput, access delay time and device cost. Learn: - How cellular systems work, and how they can be designed to cater for challenging new requirements emerging in the telecom industry. - How the physical layers and the procedures in idle and connected mode look like in EC-GSM-IoT, LTE-M, and NB-IoT. - What the expected performance of these new systems is in terms of expected coverage, battery lifetime, data throughput, access delay time, and device cost. - How the Low-Power-Wide-Area IoT market segment looks like and how different available solutions compare in terms of performance and compatibility with already existing radio networks. - What system capacity and network level performance can be achieved when deploying these new systems, and in addition what deployment options are possible. - Provides a detailed introduction to the EC-GSM-IoT, LTE-M and NB-IoT technologies - Presents network performance of the 3GPP cellular technologies, along with an analysis of the performance of non-cellular alternatives operating in unlicensed spectrum - Includes prediction of true performance levels using state-of-the-art simulation models developed in the 3GPP standardization process

Chapter 1

The Cellular Internet of Things

Abstract

This chapter introduces the overall content of the book. It contains a brief introduction to the massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC) category of use cases, spanning a wide range of applications such as smart metering and wearables. When discussing these applications, special attention is given to the service requirements associated with mMTC, for example, in terms of reachability, throughput, and latency. The chapter continues and introduces the concept of the Cellular Internet of Things (CIoT) and the three technologies Extended Coverage Global System for Mobile Communications Internet of Things (EC-GSM-IoT), Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT), and Long-Term Evolution for Machine-Type Communications (LTE-M) that can be said to define this concept. While EC-GSM-IoT and LTE-M are backward compatible solutions based on GSM and LTE, respectively, NB-IoT is a brand new radio access technology.

The final part of the chapter looks beyond the set of cellular access technologies and introduces the Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) range of solutions that already have secured a significant footprint in the mMTC market. Unlike the cellular systems, these LPWANs have been designed to operate in licensed exempt spectrum. An initial discussion around the pros and cons of licensed exempt operation is presented to prepare the reader for the final chapters of the book, where a closer look is taken at operation in the unlicensed frequency domain.

Keywords

5G; Cellular Internet of Things (CIoT); Extended Coverage GSM-IoT (EC-GSM-IoT); Internet of Things (IoT); Long-Term Evolution (LTE); Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs); LTE-M; Machine-to-Machine (M2M); Machine-Type Communications (MTC); Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT); Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)

Chapter Outline

1.1 Introduction

1.2 New Applications and Requirements

1.2.1 Leading up to the Cellular Internet of Things

1.2.2 Massive Machine-Type Communications and Ultra Reliable and Low Latency Communications

1.2.3 Introducing EC-GSM-IoT, NB-IoT, and LTE-M

1.3 Low Power Wide Area Networks

1.3.1 An Introduction to Technologies for Unlicensed Operation

1.3.2 Licensed and License Exempt Band Regulations

1.3.3 Low Power Versus Wide Area

1.3.4 A Competitive Market

References

1.1. Introduction

The Internet of Things, commonly referred to as IoT, is the latest rising star in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry and embodies the vision of connecting virtually anything with everything. Cisco estimates that 12 billion devices will be connected by 2020 [1]. Ericsson goes even further in its vision of 18 billion connected devices in 2022 [2]. Regardless of which of these two leading ICT network providers has made the best estimate, the anticipated number of devices is nothing short of dazzling. As a comparison, the total number of mobile cellular subscriptions currently amounts to 7.3 billion [2].

So what is it that will become connected, that is not already connected? Traditional use cases such as connecting utility meters to support, e.g., distribution and billing, will likely increase in numbers. A recent example is the Great Britain Smart Metering Implementation Programme, where the British government has decided to replace 53 million meters in roughly 30 million premises with advanced electricity and gas meters intended to support customers with “near real-time information on their energy consumption” [3]. Similar projects are either in progress or in the planning stages in a majority of the European Union member states [4]. At the same time, new use cases, for example, in the category of Wearables, are gaining momentum with increasing market traction being realized.

When viewed in totality, the overall number of connected devices is already undergoing an exponential growth where connectivity over cellular networks serves as a key enabler for this growth. Between 2015 and 2021, it has been approximated that the volume of devices connected to the Internet via cellular technologies alone will experience a compounded annual growth rate of roughly 25% [1].

This accelerated growth in cellular devices is supported, or perhaps driven, by the recent work performed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards development organization in Release 13 of its featured technologies. 3GPP has already been responsible for standardization of the GSM (2G), UMTS (3G), and LTE (4G) radio access technologies. The early development and evolution of these technologies has mainly been driven by traditional service requirements defined by voice and mobile broadband services. In the past couple of years, new requirements for machine connectivity have emerged in support of the IoT and transformed the process of standards evolution into what can be seen as a fast-moving revolution. Accordingly, the designs of GSM and LTE have been rethought, and a new radio access technology dedicated to supporting the IoT has been developed, resulting in three new CIoT technologies becoming globally available within a very short time frame. The mission of this book is to introduce, characterize, and, when relevant, in detail describe these three new technologies known as EC-GSM-IoT, NB-IoT, and LTE-M.

EC-GSM-IoT is a fully backward compatible solution that can be installed onto existing GSM deployments, which by far represent the world's largest and most widespread cellular technology. EC-GSM-IoT has been designed to provide connectivity to IoT type of devices under the most challenging radio coverage conditions in frequency deployments as tight as 600 kHz.

NB-IoT is a brand new radio access technology that in some aspects reuses technical components from LTE to facilitate operation within an LTE carrier. The technology also supports stand-alone operation. As the name reveals, the entire system is operable in a narrow spectrum, starting from only 200 kHz, providing unprecedented deployment flexibility because of the minimal spectrum requirements. The 200 kHz is divided into channels as narrow as 3.75 kHz to support a combination of extreme coverage and high uplink capacity, considering the narrow spectrum deployment.

LTE-M is based on LTE, which is by far the fastest growing cellular technology. LTE-M provides just as EC-GSM-IoT and NB-IoT ubiquitous coverage and highly power efficient operation. Using a flexible system bandwidth of 1.4 MHz or more, the technology is capable of serving higher-end applications with more stringent requirements on throughput and latency than what can be supported by EC-GSM-IoT and NB-IoT.

The fact that they can provide reliable communication under extreme coverage conditions while supporting battery life of many years and also realizing securely encrypted communication is said to be common to all of these technologies. All three technologies have also been designed to enable ultra-low device complexity and cost, which are important factors considering the objective of providing connectivity to billions of devices supporting diverse services and applications.

3GPP is, however, not the only organization supporting the accelerated growth in a number of connected devices. This book therefore goes beyond EC-GSM-IoT, NB-IoT, and LTE-M to provide an overview of the competitive IoT landscape and introduces a few of the most promising technologies operating in unlicensed spectrum. Both short-range solutions and long-range solutions established in the so-called LPWAN market segment are presented. As these technologies are targeting unlicensed frequency bands, they are following different design principles compared to the 3GPP technologies, which are developed for licensed frequency bands. To be able to distinguish between technologies for licensed and unlicensed operation, the book sets out to introduce and analyze the regulations associated with device operation in the most recognized license exempt frequency bands.

The book will finally provide a glimpse of the future and describe how the CIoT technologies are expected to evolve to support new use case and meet the latest market requirements. Also, the work on a fifth generation (5G) communication technology ongoing within the International Telecom Union (ITU) and 3GPP will be presented. In this context 5G features such as mMTC and Ultra Reliable and Low Latency Communication (URLLC) will be introduced.

1.2. New Applications and Requirements

1.2.1. Leading up to the Cellular Internet of Things

The CIoT may be the latest hype in the mobile industry, but cellular communication for mobile telephony has actually been well established for more than three decades. Over time, it has evolved from being a niche product in developed countries to become an everyday commodity reaching almost every corner of the world. It has, since its introd...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• About the Authors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. The Cellular Internet of Things
• Chapter 2. World-Class Standards
• Chapter 3. EC-GSM-IoT
• Chapter 4. EC-GSM-IoT Performance
• Chapter 5. LTE-M
• Chapter 6. LTE-M Performance
• Chapter 7. NB-IoT
• Chapter 8. NB-IoT Performance
• Chapter 9. The Competitive Internet of Things Technology Landscape
• Chapter 10. 5G and the Internet of Things
• Index