Hello everyone, you are watching this video on shunt electronics and in this video we are going to learn about NB-IoT that is narrowband internet of things. This is an IoT network that helps to connect different devices to internet. We will start with basics. First, we will learn about what is narrowband, then what is IoT and LPWAN.
LPWAN is low power wide area network of which NB-IoT is a part. Then we will go in detail of NB-IoT. What is NB-IoT? How and when it was originated?
The organization that controls NB-IoT? Makes and prepare rules and standard for NB-IoT? Then we will see modes of operation and architecture of NB-IoT.
Then we will compare different IoT networks like LTE-M, NB-IoT, LoRa and Sigfox. Then we have three slides on application advantage and usage milestone. So let's start.
Let's start with Narrowband. What is Narrowband? As you can see in the diagram, there are three bands. First is Narrowband, second is Broadband and third is Wideband. We can clearly see the difference between Narrowband, Broadband and Wideband through this diagram.
Bandwidth of Narrowband is quite smaller than Broadband and Wideband. We utilize Broadband and Wideband in our daily life for internet and mobile communication. What if we need to send a string of data through Broadband and Wideband? The bandwidth of these channels goes unutilized when we send a string of data and we all know that bandwidth has a cost. The advantage of narrowband is first it has low bandwidth and can send a signal with low power over a long range.
It also has a high interference resistance. The disadvantage of narrowband signal is it requires high performing filters to pass desired signal without attenuation and second it can only send the low data. at a time. We all have heard the buzzword IoT.
So what is definition of IoT? The Internet of Things is the system of connected computing devices, machines, sensors, animals, people, objects with unique identifiers that have ability to transfer compute analyzed data over a network without requiring human to human or human to computer interaction. Means Let's say we have a smart energy meter as an end node and we have connected it to server through NB-IoT network. Now energy meter can transfer energy readings, fault condition etc to server through NB-IoT network.
And that server can analyze that data and take actions. For example, generating the bill, calling maintenance guy, that all through without human to. human or human to computer interaction.
So this is a system of connected devices that can transfer, compute, analyze data and can take actions based on that data without requiring human to human and human to computer interaction. Like NB-IoT there are other networks also like SigFok, LoRaWAN, RFID, Wi-Fi, Thread, ZigBee, LTE, MCAT etc that can be utilized as a IoT network. NB-IoT is a part of Low Power Wide Area Network which is also called LPWAN in short.
So, LPWAN is a type of wide area network which connects devices over large area and allows long range of communication at a low orbit rate, low cost and greater power efficiency. LPWAN supports a large number of devices over wide areas in comparison to cellular network. Other networks in LPWAN are LoRa and Sigfox.
Note through this diagram you can clearly see the advantage of LPWAN. Now if we see the blue part that is LPWAN the range and geographical coverage are quite high but the power consumption bandwidth radio cost radio subscription cost number of base stations are quite low the only disadvantage is transmission latency but for cellular networks these all power consumption bandwidth costs are high Range and coverage are low. The only advantage is they have low transmission latency means they can signal faster than compared with LPWAN or other networks. So NB-IoT inherited characteristics and advantage from LPWAN and narrowband signals. So NB-IoT can transfer data over a long range with greater power efficiency and low cost.
Now we know that IoT requires a network that can transmit data over a long range with low power and at a low and at low bit rate But the cellular networks like 3G, 4G, 5G were not optimized for this. So the cellular body 3GPP that is 3rd Generation Partnership Project came up with NB-IoT standard in release 13 in 2006. With release 14 and 15 they updated the standard of NB-IoT and with release 16 in 2020, July 2020 they said that NB-IoT will co-exist with 5G. So we can expect a life of 20-30 years for NB-IoT networks. NB-IoT is an internationally acclaimed low-power wide-area network-based wireless communication standard developed by 3GPP for devices that require low bandwidth and a small amount of data transfer thus improving battery life, penetration power and device density and enabling low complexity and costs.
All wireless communication systems transmit and receive signals in a particular frequency band like Bluetooth Wi-Fi mobile system mobile communication system military communication system etc now now our frequency band is already crowded and NB-IoT has a bandwidth of 200 kilohertz so here we will see the different mode of operation of NB-IoT in the crowded license spectrum first is in band operation in in band operation NB-IoT uses the free frequency spectrum of an LTE channel Second is guard band operation in guard band operation LTE channels have a guard band between Channels to reduce the interference and these guard bands have enough bandwidth to accommodate NB-IoT channel We can see in this diagram that in this guard band NB-IoT is accommodated in Standalone mode it occupies the channel which were previously occupied by a GSM So these were the GSM channels and NB-IoT occupies the complete GSM carrier channel The architecture of NB-IoT and cellular mobile network is very similar. NB-IoT operates in the licensed cellular spectrum and uses QPSK as a modulation technique. Also use FDMA and OFDMA as an uplink and downlink. Now let's move to this diagram. Here we can see that from this base station core NB-IoT network and machine to machine platform, this is the NB-IoT network and the function of this network is to transmit data between this iot end nodes and the application server so this application server compute and analyze the data and send command to the end iot nodes through this company terminal we can visualize the data of these end nodes and control the operation of application and end node all these end node are fitted with nbiot module all nbiot modules has nbiot chipset and a sim with unique identifiers so all these modules are unique just like our mobile phones This module is fitted with antenna to extend its communication range.
The function of this module and antenna is to communicate with the base station and transmit and receive signal from host. Now host is a microprocessor controller microcontroller which hosts the application and communicate with the module and peripheral devices like sensor. The function of host, host controls the end node. For example, in case of smart light, host switches on and off the light.
In case of energy meter, host measured the energy consumption. Now let's compare different IoT networks. Here we will compare LTE, CAT1, LTE-M, NB-IoT, LoRa, and Sigfox. These three operates in licensed spectrum whereas LoRa and Sigfox operate in unlicensed spectrum. The bandwidth will decrease when we move from LTE, CAT1 to Sigfox.
the data transfer this is full duplex this is full full and half duplex this is half duplex this is half duplex and this is also half duplex half duplex means we cannot send and receive signal simultaneously at one time we can send signal and on another time we can receive signal we cannot send and receive signal simultaneously these three operates in cellular band these two operates in sub gigahertz band which is free this is paid these bands are paid The data rate decreases when we move from LTE Cat1 to Sigfox like 10 Mbps and here we are getting only 100 Kbps. For NB-IoT it is 250 Kbps. Then we have maximum coupling, expected module cost which also decreases when we move from left to right, expected battery life. The battery life increases when we move from left to right.
As the speed is decreasing so the load on particular device is less. and we have a very good life here in NB-IoT, LoRa and Sigfox. These three requires as these are cellular.
So these three required sim whereas these two doesn't require sim. then we have modulation of these three the latency which is very important the latency for and cat 1 is 50 to 100 millisecond but for sigfox is 2 to 30 second and for nba it is 1.6 to 10 seconds the latency is the time taken between uh time taken to transmit data from end node and iot node to end application server and from an application server to an iot node Device transmit power this these are the all device transmit power Standards the organization which controls these These communication network these three are controlled by 3 GPP that that is third generation project partnership which also controls the cellular mobile networks and Laura is controlled by Laura lines and sigfox is a proprietary network The range for these two are medium and for these three is high or very high Application of NB-IoT All application of IoT are also the application of NB-IoT like Smart Metering, Smart Lighting, Asset Management, Warehouse Management, Stock Management, Smart Parking, Water Conservation, Alarm and Event Detectors Other applications like Industrial IoT which is a major application of IoT Now we will see advantages of NB-IoT We have just now compared the NB-IoT with different IoT networks What we found is first it has high it is a high density network when we compare it with laura and sick fox the bandwidth of nbo it is higher so it can accommodate the higher number of devices when compared with laura and sick fox it has low power consumption high data rates low cost low bandwidth and extended coverage high security level as this is a cellular network so the security level will be higher in comparison to laura and sick fox it also has mobility like in our cellular networks when we move from one place to another we are always connected with the network similarly when a nbi it node move from one place to another place it is always connected now let's see the usage milestone of nbt in different countries with the internet of things is expected to reach 75 billion devices by 2025 nbt network is going to play a key role in that First, let's see what is the condition of NB-IoT in United States. In United States, there are three major companies, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon.
All the three has deployed LTE-M network for IOTs. But all the three are interested in NB-IoT like T-Mobile and AT&T has already deployed NB-IoT network whereas Verizon is also planning to do so. In UK and Europe, Vodafone has already connected 62 million devices and started open labs. China has already connected 100 million NB-IoT devices and their three major companies China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile is saying that their NB-IoT revenue has been rising from 20 to 40 percent per year. In India, Reliance Jio service is commercially available from January 2020. Airtel, Vodafone, IDN and BSNR are also offering NB-IoT services.