Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN)

- Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) 

The Internet of Things (IoT) today relies on multiple competing methods of connectivity, but low-power wide area networks (LPWANs) are rapidly emerging as one of the more important standards. 

Low power wide area (LPWA) networks are attracting a lot of attention primarily because of their ability to offer affordable connectivity to the low-power devices distributed over very large geographical areas. In realizing the vision of the Internet of Things, LPWA technologies complement and sometimes supersede the conventional cellular and short range wireless technologies in performance for various emerging smart city and machine-to-machine applications.

LPWA networks will play an important role in connecting up the billions of new devices making up the IoT. LPWA technologies are expected to serve a diverse range of vertical industries and support a range of applications and deployment scenarios, which existing mobile technologies may not currently be best placed to connect.

Due to the diversity of IoT application requirements, a single technology is not capable of addressing all of the LPWA use cases. For this reason the mobile industry has focused on two complementary licensed 3GPP standards: Long-Term Evolution for Machines (LTE-M) and Narrowband-Internet of Things (NB-IoT). 

As LPWA networks are designed for IoT applications that have low data rates, require long battery lives, are low cost, and operate in remote and hard to reach locations, they will be easy to deploy across a number of different verticals such as utilities, smart cities, logistics, agriculture, manufacturing, and wearables. 

LPWA is a quickly emerging area of the IoT and represents a huge market opportunity as the IoT scales. Analyst firm Machina Research anticipate there will be 3 billion LPWA connections by 2025. By 2022, already 56% of active LPWA connections will be in licensed spectrum.

- Long-Term Evolution for Machines (LTE-M)

Long Term Evolution Machine (LTE-M) is derived from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) 4G LTE standard. It leverages LTE's broad advantages in efficient flat Internet protocol architecture, mobility, prioritization mechanisms, security, and global foundation. It has close ties to legacy 3GPP 2G and 3G networks and has been able to migrate to robust 5G solutions relatively seamlessly. 

LTE-M can be effectively used for various applications with different bandwidth and latency ranges. It is very similar to NB-IoT but has advantages in bandwidth range, latency and mobility. Its disadvantages include the complexity and cost of the terminal equipment. 

LTE-M is the optimal Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology of choice for IoT applications requiring higher data rates, low latency, full mobility and voice in typical coverage scenarios. LTE-M is also a strong LPWAN contender for IoT applications requiring deep coverage with less stringent latency, mobility and data speed requirements. Overall, this versatility enables LTE-M to support an extremely wide range of IoT applications, helping to increase volume and drive economies of scale.

- Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT)

Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) radio technology standard developed by 3GPP to enable a wide range of cellular devices and services. The specification was frozen in 3GPP Release 13 (LTE Advanced Pro), in June 2016. Other 3GPP IoT technologies include eMTC (enhanced Machine-Type Communication) and EC-GSM-IoT. 

NB-IoT focuses specifically on indoor coverage, low cost, long battery life, and high connection density. NB-IoT uses a subset of the LTE standard, but limits the bandwidth to a single narrow-band of 200kHz. It uses OFDM modulation for downlink communication and SC-FDMA for uplink communications. IoT applications which require more frequent communications will be better served by NB-IoT, which has no duty cycle limitations operating on the licensed spectrum.  

In March 2019, the Global Mobile Suppliers Association announced that over 100 operators have deployed/launched either NB-IoT or LTE-M networks.. This number had risen to 142 deployed/launched networks by September 2019.

[More to come ...]