Huawei has launched the world’s first 3GPP R14-based NB-IoT solution in eRAN13.1. The latest NB-IoT solution effectively increases the data rates by a factor of seven, offers double cell capacity and coverage, and introduces new improvements in location services.
Mobile operators Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone have completed the first international roaming trial in Europe using licensed NB-IoT technology. The service will ensure seamless coverage and service continuity for IoT connections using Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) networks, said GSMA.
There are 45 commercial NB-IoT networks deployed and more than 500,000 NB-IoT base stations established. Currently, 40 use cases such as wireless meter reading, connected cows, smart manhole covers, wireless smoke detectors, and smart door locks have benefited from the deployment of NB-IoT technology.
More than 10 million NB-IoT connections have been widely used in urban management and people’s lives.
Mobile operators are looking for a new IoT technology that can support high-data-rate communications to accelerate GSM spectrum refarming because the first-generation NB-IoT solution in compliance with 3GPP R13 cannot meet the high requirements of a number of IoT applications.
Features of Huawei NB-IoT solution
The uplink peak rate and downlink single-user peak rate can reach 157 kbit/s and 102 kbit/s, respectively. The single-user data rates enable NB-IoT applications to serve as the perfect replacement for the GPRS-based examples.
The maximum number of users in a single cell can reach over 80,000, almost doubling the cell capacity of the previous release. This will effectively help towards providing large capacity to promote the realization of a fully connected world.
Huawei uplink channel estimation enhancement technologies improve the deep coverage capability of cells and reduce network construction costs.
NB-IoT terminals can deliver a positioning accuracy of 50 meters without the integration of GPS modules. Such terminals boast a power consumption and positioning delay that is only half of that provided by a GPS-based solution. GPS-free location services are ideally suited for applications such as asset tracking, logistics, and pet tracking.
“The newly released 3GPP R14-based commercial NB-IoT solution can improve the performance of NB-IoT networks in data rates, cell capacity and cell coverage, expand the potential scope of application for NB-IoT through location services,” Chen Chuanfei, vice president of Huawei LTE Product Line, said.
