NB-IoT stands for Narrow Band Internet of Things; it’s basically a new protocol designed especially for IoT or in more technical term It is a new mobile network introduced in 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project).IoT industry mainly serves low power wide area application and for this a cellular network with provides reliability of data exchanged, secure connection, low maintenance cost with low module cost, longer battery life is highly needed and athe solution is Narrow band IoT.
Why NB-IoT used for IoT?
IoT devices are usually small and consist of simple sensors which are used to cover local area or to focus on wide area coverage. NB-IoT provides better coverage with deep indoor penetration. It only supports few Kilo bit per second as many IoT application usually transmit small amount of data that too occasionally. Narrow band IoT requires low –speed but reliable data transfer and perfect level of reliability.
NB-IoT also provides following functionality to support its existence in era of Internet of things
- Wide area coverage
- Low Power consumption
- Longer Battery Lifetime
- Deployment flexibility
- Target ultra-low end IoT application
- Allow easy integration and sharing of radio resources with GSM and LTE network.
- Narrow band IoT modules are cheaper than those of GSM modules.
When compared with GSM, Narrow band IoT provides +20 dB improved indoor coverage. Ten years battery life as compared with GSM, 50K connections per cell.