SMART TECH AND IoT
standard is largely due to the trade-offs each brings. For example, one protocol might offer greater throughput, but lower range or another might trade-off range in favour of lower power consumption. For example, the cellular IoT technologies LTE-M and NB-IoT are geared towards providing long range, low throughput while extending battery life. Despite the trade-offs, cellular IoT is gaining the greatest market share in the LPWAN market. According to IoT Analytics, outside of China, which has a national policy of NB-IoT implementation, NB-IoT (23 percent) and LTE-M (35 percent) make up 58 percent of the global LPWAN installed base in 2023, compared to 42 percent for the combined competition. While popular, cellular IoT is not for everyone. For example, because it uses regulated spectrum, the use of cellular IoT attracts continuous data charges.
A standards-based, low cost (free of data charges), wireless M2M technology is needed at the massive millions-to-billions-of-end device scale. While the devices connected to such a network are likely to be compact, often battery-powered and with limited energy, computing and memory resources they will still demand reliable coverage when deployed at very high densities.
The requirement for Massive IoT technologies has been recognised by the
standards-setting bodies when considering tomorrow’s 5G infrastructure. For example, the IMT-2020 Standard details how networks will meet the demands of consumers and industry by offering capabilities such as capacity’ of 10 megabits per second per square meter and a connection density of one million devices per square kilometer. The technology for consumers and “New Radio” (NR) for other use cases, including the unique demands of the IoT.
Engineers call the 5G LTE and NR elements performance requirements across three consumer and industrial use cases; two of these, ‘urban macro’ Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC) and urban macro massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC), are the RITs that primarily support IoT applications.
Non-cellular 5G Massive IoT DECT NR+ (NR+) has been adopted as a RIT (actually a set of RITs or SRIT) for both URLLC technology to be adopted as a 5G standard. European Telecommunications Standards
Fig 3: Nordic Semiconductor is offers a fully inclusive Massive IoT solution that brings simplicity, stabil-
Institute (ETSI) in June 2020 and is also now recognised within IMT-2020 5G requirements. particularly for supporting one million devices per square km.
NR+ is a license-free technology, like ISM band wireless technologies such as Bluetooth LE and Wi-Fi, but will be standardised and maintained as a cellular-like wireless tech. This will include, for example, a radio physical layer (PHY) and the use of signal modulation and coding schemes instantly familiar to any cellular engineer.
NR+ does not require a cellular base station to operate. Instead, it forms a private network using the global, license-exempt 1.9 GHz band and requires no spectrum leasing costs. Nonetheless, NR+ is a state-of-the-art 5G technology that promises to deliver all These include an ability to scale to enough nodes to support large, local mesh networks such as factory, warehouse or campus wide infrastructure, with cellular’s legendary security and reliability.
The technology promises to deliver ultra reliable wireless connectivity in completely new M2M applications where failure is not an option. Think critical infrastructure in buildings, cities and utilities networks. Its reliability can exceed that of wired installations because the technology will employ self-healing mesh networking techniques that eliminate single points of failure. NR+ promises latencies matching that of wired networks from the start.
Private 5G wireless IoT networks The sunsetting of legacy 2G and 3G M2M networks has provided a catalyst for private 5G networks. With such a network, smart machine learning (ML) applications rapidly,
without disrupting the production line or supply chain and without cables and wires. Until now, the rollout of these networks has stalled because of prohibitive cost. Building and licensing a 5G network has been complex, time-consuming and expensive. For small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), that even for those that can afford it, existing technologies do not support million node per square km density limiting their application. Now, NR+ offers the ideal technology upon which to base a private network. Any company, organisation or municipality can build its own infrastructure and run and optimise it as they wish, free of a network operator. They can do this using a license-exempt and globally available frequency dedicated for this technology.
Meeting massive demand As the demand for NR+ gathers pace, chipmakers need to respond with equal nimbleness to deliver end-to-end cellular IoT solutions that integrate NR+ support for Massive IoT deployments. Nordic fully inclusive, world class, Massive IoT solution that brings simplicity, stability and cost and deployment.
Where next from here? The promise of NR+ is that it will provide previously unavailable access to Massive IoT for large scale applications and at a low cost. While today there may be 17 billion connected devices around the world, according to Teppo Hemiä, CEO of Wirepas, an enterprise IoT software company and Nordic partner, only are connected. When the remaining 95 percent are connected then we will see the real promise of Massive IoT.
DECEMBER/JANUARY 2025 | ELECTRONICS FOR ENGINEERS 47
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