In April 2020, the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information 5g and nb iotTechnology (MIIT) issued a notice on further promoting the overall development of mobile Internet, stating clearly that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China "establishes a comprehensive ecosystem for the coordinated development of nb-iot (narrowband Internet of Things), 4g (including lte-cat1 and lte-cat4) and 5g mobile Internet of Things. "The exit of 2g/3g networks has become inevitable and 4g/5g (nb-iot + 4g + 5g) based IoT technologies will play an important role in opening up a new era of IoT.

NB-IoT

B-IoT is called narrowband IoT, with wide coverage, low power consumption, low module cost, large connection volume, etc. The transmission rate is about 250Kb. Under the trend of 2G decommissioning, NB-IoT has gradually replaced the original 2G related applications, and more large-scale and more types of applications will appear in the future. At present, its typical applications include smart meters (water, electricity and gas), smart manhole covers, smart smoke sensors, smart sanitation, smart door locks, bicycle sharing, etc.

NB-IOT network diagram

4G

3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project 3rd Generation Technology Cooperative Learning Partnership) names different types of network development rates in the "Cat. X" value is used to identify the system terminal control equipment through the different levels of wireless security performance, the higher the performance index, the larger the "X" value. The current mainstream terminal data rate in China's domestic 4G network reaches the standard of Cat.1 and Cat.4.

Comparison of Cat1 and Cat4 parameters

Cat1 has a higher propagation rate and lower cost compared to traditional methods. It can seamlessly connect to existing lte networks with lower transmission latency. The uplink transmission rate is 5.2 Mbit/s and the downlink transmission rate is 10.3 Mbit/s, supporting normal data transmission at a mobile speed of 100 km per hour. It is mainly used in shared terminals, financial payments, smart on-demand machines, industrial control, car payments, and public intercom.

Compared with Cat1, Cat.4 has higher power consumption, faster transmission rate (50Mbps upstream and 150Mbps downstream), and different application scenarios. It is mainly used in scenarios such as video surveillance, 4G mobile law enforcement, and live video broadcasting, relying on network transmission devices such as 4G routers to transmit data back.

Cat1 and Cat4 applications for scenarios

5G

5G is a new network architecture with deep integration of cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, virtual augmented reality and other technologies, providing a panoramic and fully connected capability for digital transformation in various industries. 5G networks are characterized by high bandwidth, low latency, and wide connectivity.

For high-bandwidth applications, 5g networks can provide essential support for ultra-high-definition video, next-generation social networking, immersive gaming and other scenarios, depending on their transmission rates of more than 10gb

For applications with low latency characteristics, relying on ultra-low latency of 1ms, 5G networks can provide control service support for latency-hungry vertical industries such as Telematics, Mobile Healthcare, and Industrial Internet.

In terms of wide connectivity characteristics for application research, relying on its concurrent access management capacity of one million per square kilometer, 5G networks can be combined with deep learning of typical application scenarios represented by smart tourism cities, environmental analysis and detection, smart homes, etc., providing wide coverage and low rate capabilities as support to help Chinese enterprises and governments develop in the 5G era can successfully realize information digital transformation.

As a major manufacturer of industrial communication products in China, the company has been focusing on the development of industrial Internet of Things (IoT) technology and has launched several typical industrial wireless digital transmission terminal (DTU) products. They meet the future demand of device networking in the industrial field, including NB-IoT dtu mnt351, LTE Cat-1 dtu mgt541, LTE Cat-4 dtu mgt551 and full-band 4g dtu mgt571.