Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB IoT) has become an important branch of the Internet of Things network. NB IoT is built on a cellular network and only consumes approximately 180KHz of bandwidth. It can be directly deployed on GSM, UMTS, or LTE networks to reduce deployment costs and achieve smooth upgrades.
What is NB IoT
NB IoT is an emerging technology in the IoT field that supports cellular data connections of low-power devices over wide area networks, also known as low-power wide area networks (LPWANs). NB IoT supports efficient connection of devices with long standby time and high network connectivity requirements. It is said that the battery life of NB IoT devices can be improved by at least 10 years, while also providing very comprehensive indoor cellular data connection coverage.
Huawei was the earliest to promote the development of IoT standards. In May 2014, Huawei proposed narrowband technology NB M2M; In May 2015, NB CIOT was formed by integrating NB OFDMA; In July, NB LTE and NB CIOT further merged to form NB IOT; It is expected that the NB IOT standard will appear in 3GPP R13 and be frozen in June 2016.
Previously, compared to the NB LTE promoted by Ericsson, Nokia, and Intel, Huawei placed more emphasis on building the NB CIOT ecosystem, including mainstream operators such as Qualcomm, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Bell, chip companies, and upstream and downstream devices in the system industry chain.
NB IOT focuses on the Low Power Wide Coverage (LPWA) Internet of Things (IoT) market and is an emerging technology that can be widely applied globally. It has the characteristics of wide coverage, multiple connections, fast speed, low cost, low power consumption, and excellent architecture. NB IOT uses the License frequency band and can be deployed in three ways: in band, protected band, or independent carrier, coexisting with existing networks.
Main Application Classification of NB IoT
In the field of low-speed IoT, NB IoT, as a new standard, achieves the ultimate in technology such as cost, coverage, power consumption, and number of connections. This technology is widely used in eight typical industries, including public utilities, healthcare, smart cities, consumers, agricultural environment, logistics and warehousing, intelligent buildings, and manufacturing.
Public utilities: meter reading (water/gas/electricity/heat), intelligent water services (pipeline network/leakage/quality inspection), intelligent fire extinguishers/fire hydrants.
Medical health: drug traceability, remote medical monitoring, blood pressure gauge, blood glucose meter, and heart armor monitoring.
Smart City: Intelligent street lights, intelligent parking, urban garbage bin management, public safety/alarm, construction sites/urban water level monitoring.
Consumers: wearable devices, bicycle/scooter anti-theft, smart luggage, VIP tracking (children/elderly/pets/vehicle rental), payment/POS machines.
Agricultural environment: precision planting (environmental parameters: water/temperature/light/medicine/fertilizer), animal husbandry (health/tracking), aquaculture, food safety traceability, urban environmental monitoring (water pollution/noise/air quality PM2.5).
Logistics warehousing: asset/container tracking, warehouse management, fleet management/tracking, cold chain logistics (status/tracking).
Intelligent buildings: access control, intelligent HVAC, smoke/fire detection, elevator malfunction/maintenance.
Manufacturing industry: production/equipment status monitoring, energy facilities/oil and gas monitoring, chemical park monitoring, large-scale leasing equipment, predictive maintenance (household appliances, machinery, etc.).
NB IoT is an emerging Internet of Things technology that has attracted attention due to its low power consumption, stable connection, low cost, and excellent architecture optimization. As NB IoT technology becomes more mature, its presence will emerge in more fields.