Things start to become a bit complex in Release-13. The above picture from Qualcomm explains the evolution and use cases very well. However, to put more details to the above picture, here is some details from the 4G Americas whitepaper (embedded below)
In support of IoT, 3GPP has been working on all several related solutions and generating an abundance of LTE-based and GSM-based proposals. As a consequence, 3GPP has been developing three different cellular IoT standard- solutions in Release-13:
- LTE-M, based on LTE evolution
- EC-GSM, a narrowband solution based on GSM evolution, and
- NB-LTE, a narrowband cellular IoT solution, also known as Clean Slate technologies
- ‘Stand-alone operation’ utilizing, for example, the spectrum currently being used by GERAN systems as a replacement of one or more GSM carriers,
- ‘Guard band operation’ utilizing the unused resource blocks within a LTE carrier’s guard-band, and
- ‘In-band operation’ utilizing resource blocks within a normal LTE carrier.
LTE-M: 3GPP RAN is developing LTE-Machine-to-Machine (LTE-M) specifications for supporting LTE-based low cost CIoT in Rel-12 (Low-Cost MTC) with further enhancements planned for Rel-13 (LTE eMTC). LTE-M supports data rates of up to 1 Mbps with lower device cost and power consumption and enhanced coverage and capacity on the existing LTE carrier.
EC-GSM: In the 3GPP GERAN #62 study item “Cellular System Support for Ultra Low Complexity and Low Throughput Internet of Things”, narrowband (200 kHz) CIoT solutions for migration of existing GSM carriers sought to enhance coverage by 20 dB compared to legacy GPRS, and achieve a ten year battery life for devices that were also cost efficient. Performance objectives included improved indoor coverage, support for massive numbers of low-throughput devices, reduced device complexity, improved power efficiency and latency. Extended Coverage GSM (EC-GSM) was fully compliant with all five performance objectives according to the August 2015 TSG GERAN #67 meeting report. GERAN will continue with EC-GSM as a work item within GERAN with the expectation that standards will be frozen by March 2016. This solution necessarily requires a GSM network.
NB-LTE: In August 2015, work began in 3GPP RAN Rel-13 on a new narrowband radio access solution also termed as Clean Slate CIoT. The Clean Slate approach covers the Narrowband Cellular IoT (NB-CIoT), which was the only one of six proposed Clean Slate technologies compliant against a set of performance objectives (as noted previously) in the TSG GERAN #67 meeting report and will be part of Rel-13 to be frozen in March 2016. Also contending in the standards is Narrowband LTE Evolution (NB-LTE) which has the advantage of easy deployment across existing LTE networks.
Rel-12 introduces important improvements for M2M like lower device cost and longer battery life. Further improvements for M2M are envisioned in Rel-13 such as enhanced coverage, lower device cost and longer battery life. The narrowband CIoT solutions also aim to provide lower cost and device power consumption and better coverage; however, they will also have reduced data rates. NB CleanSlate CIoT is expected to support data rates of 160bps with extended coverage.
Table 7.1 provides some comparison of the three options to be standardized, as well as the 5G option, and shows when each release is expected to be finalized.
Another IoT technology that has been giving the cellular IoT industry run for money is the LoRa alliance. I blogged about LoRa in May and it has been a very popular post. A extract from a recent article from Rethink Research as follows:
In the past few weeks, the announcements have been ramping up. Semtech (the creator of the LoRa protocol itself, and the key IP owner) has been most active, announcing that The Lace Company, a wireless operator, has deployed LoRa network architecture in over a dozen Russian cities, claiming to cover 30m people over 9,000km2. Lace is currently aiming at building out Russian coverage, but will be able to communicate to other LoRa devices over the LoRa cloud, as the messages are managed on cloud servers once they have been transmitted from end-device to base unit via LoRaWAN.
“Our network allows the user to connect to an unlimited number of smart sensors,” said Igor Shirokov, CEO of Lace Ltd. “We are providing connectivity to any device that supports the open LoRaWAN standard. Any third party company can create new businesses and services in IoT and M2M market based on our network and the LoRaWAN protocol.”
Elsewhere, Saudi Arabian telco Du has launched a test LoRa network in Dubai, as part of a smart city test project. “This is a defining moment in the UAE’s smart city transformation,” said Carlos Domingo, senior executive officer at Du. “We need a new breed of sensor friendly network to establish the smart city ecosystem. Thanks to Du, this capability now exists in the UAE Today we’ve shown how our network capabilities and digital know-how can deliver the smart city ecosystem Dubai needs. We will not stop in Dubai; our deployment will continue country-wide throughout the UAE.”
But the biggest recent LoRa news is that Orange has committed itself to a national French network rollout, following an investment in key LoRa player Actility. Orange has previously trialed a LoRa network in Grenoble, and has said that it opted for LoRa over Sigfox thanks to its more open ecosystem – although it’s worth clarifying here that Semtech still gets a royalty on every LoRa chip that’s made, and will continue to do so until it chooses not to or instead donates the IP to the non-profit LoRa Alliance itself.
It would be interesting to see if this LoRa vs CIoT ends up the same way as WiMAX vs LTE or not.
Embedded below is the 4G Americas whitepaper as well as a LoRa presentation from Semtech:
Further reading:
- Sigfox and LoRa march onwards as Weightless releases dev kit; the race to gain a foothold before the arrival of the LTE equivalents - Rethink Research
- The LoRa® Alliance Launches the LoRaWAN™ Certification Program
- Semtech LoRa Community Overview
- Consortium including Orange and Foxconn backs LoRa IoT startup Actility
- Harmonizing the industry on a narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) specification
- New LTE standard for Internet of Things gets push from 3GPP
Sigfox is very different with much lower datarates and an add on to the cellular systems. We see LoRa and IoT-NB very close together and the telco's we meet use our SIGFOX for super low cost and ultra low power and they are looking to IoT-NB for the next step in true carriergrade iot networking.
ReplyDeleteWeightless not in the picture?
ReplyDeleteThe article is incorrect. GERAN Study Item conclusion was that EC-GSM and NB-CIoT (by Huawei) were meeting the requirements, while NB-LTE proposal was not detailed enough to be conclusive. Yet, the "agreed" way forward is a unified NB-IOT combining NB-LTE and NB-CIoT, not EC-GSM.
ReplyDeleteNow, again I think the question is not CIoT or LoRa, as if we were asking Cellular or Wi-Fi. LPWAN-LS (licensed spectrum) and LPWAN-U (unlicensed spectrum) will be complementary. 3GPP is on its way to agree an open standard NB-IOT for licensed spectrum (although it might be a few years before NB-LTE and NB-CIoT can be nicely unified with cost and power-efficient silicon available), and the question might remain on what the standard should be for LPWAN-U.
Weightless should indeed be in the picture, as Weightless-N essentially offers Sigfox's capabilities (although with better capacity) in a freely available standard, while Weightless-P significantly enhances the capabilities (bidirectionnal, adaptive data rate up to 100kbps, acknowledged downlink/uplink, paging, broadcast/multicast, frequency hopping, no duty cycle limitations). As an open standard, it would be available from multiple silicon vendors, which is a must to drive cost down. This seems a better basis for LPWAN-U standard (the Wi-Fi of Things) than propeietary, single-source LoRa CSS (especially considering CSS physical layer is already outperformed by more standard physical layers like 802.15.4g)