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Narrow Band Internet of Things also known as NB-IoT, is a wireless communication technology in a licensed frequency band to communicate over large distance with a long lifespan.
There are a lot of terms used nowadays to refer to the rapid growth of 'connected devices', connecting different types of 'devices' to simplify operations. This Industrial Revolution, Digitalization or Internet of Things require new communication technologies that allow for a long range combined with high energy efficiency.
Narrow Band IoT is a LPWAN connectivity protocol which was first standardised in 3GPP release 13 as LTE Category NB1, later updated to NB2.
Within the standard it's covered how an NB-IoT device functions and communicates within a telecommunications network and the mechanisms available for power saving.
While power saving is very important within LPWAN nodes, within the NB-IoT standard it's not mandatory. This makes the actual power usage of a NB-IoT dependent on the functions the network provider currently supports.
LPWAN
Low Power Wide Area Network is a type of wireless communication network, with a focus on Long Range and Low Power usage.
Besides NB-IoT, we also offer LoRaWAN and LTE-M devices.
How does Narrow Band Internet of Things work?
Because NB-IoT is a cellular standard as per the 3GPP standard, it uses a licensed spectrum. NB-IoT uses a subset of LTE, and can be seen as the mobile industry's answers to non-cellular LPWAN such as LoRaWAN.
As NB-IoT is a cellular based technology, the performance is dependent on the overall quality and capacity of the NB-IoT network provider.
NB-IoT has a high penetration ability, which makes it suitable for deep indoor placements.
When compared to other LPWAN technologies, NB-IoT delivers high bandwith and downlink capacity, this allows for more data intensive applications.
It also allows beter support for over the air updates and allows flexibility for querying information and verbose information.
While NB-IoT nodes are somewhat more power hungry then other LPWAN nodes, with a good dimension of battery cells you can still reach a battery operation for 10+ years.
The deep building penetration can be realized thanks to the narrowband modulation methods, giving 5 decibels more compared to LTE-M and 20 decibels more then GSM.
Installation of NB-IoT end nodes is fairly easy, because they automatically connect to the NB-IoT network of choice there is no need to install additional gateways.
Yobiiq, your Narrow Band solutions provider.
Yobiiq is a experienced and competent partner for NB-IoT technologies, we distribute a wide range of end nodes with NB-IoT compatibility.
There is a great potential for end nodes in almost every environment, if you are interested in products or services from our extensive range do not hesitate to contact us!