NB-IoT will be the primary choice for LPWAN applications in the 5G era

NB-IoT started "acceleration".

Since the first introduction of NB-IoT in 2015, NB-IoT has experienced the 2016 standard freeze, the 2017 solution is ready, and the ecological maturity of 2018 is several stages. Cao Ming, vice president of Huawei's wireless product line, said that NB-IoT has successfully entered the stage of commercial scale in 2019 NB-IoT's “100 million” sailing ecological summit. There are 89 NB-IoT commercial networks in the world. With more than 180 models and nearly 70 million business connections, NB-IoT has become the world's best, most mainstream and preferred LPWA technology.

Cao Ming mentioned that in the development of NB-IoT industry, Huawei is a loyal promoter of the NB-IoT industry, and continues to advance the NB-IoT industry in terms of solutions and industrial ecology. In terms of solutions, Huawei is the industry's leading provider of NB-IoT end-to-end solutions from chips and network devices to the IoT cloud platform.

Cao Ming introduced that three years ago, Huawei introduced the NB-IoT chip, Boudica 120, which greatly accelerated the commercial process of NB-IoT. In 2018, Huawei developed the Boudica 150 chip, supported the R14 protocol, supported multiple frequency bands, and the performance approached. GPRS effectively broadens the application area of ​​NB-IoT. By 2020, Huawei will launch the Boudica 200 chip, which supports the 3GPP R14/R15 protocol, with higher integration, security and openness. The power consumption in typical scenarios can be reduced by more than 40%. The application of the Boudica 200 will be further Improve the connection performance of NB-IoT terminals.

At the network, platform and ecological level, Huawei is also constantly making efforts.

At the network level, Huawei follows the evolution of the protocol and continuously improves end-to-end performance. The R14 uplink rate has reached 150Kbps. Compared with the GPRS IoT technology, the R15/R16 delay and power consumption will be further reduced, and the coverage distance can reach 120KM. By then, the scope of NB-IoT enablement will be more extensive.

On the cloud platform, based on the OceanConnect IoT cloud platform, Huawei can provide full-stack full-scenario cloud services for smart cities, car networking, smart campus and other industries. It has a billion-level connection and a million-level concurrent capability. The adaptation includes NB-IoT. Multi-network, multi-protocol and multi-industry interfaces including 5G have already aggregated the industrial ecology of 50+ industry and 3000+ partners.

Especially in terms of ecology, Cao Ming mentioned that in 2016, Huawei first created Openlab, providing services such as solution design, solution integration and technical certification for IoT partners. Currently, it has successfully incubated more than 40 commercial applications from Openlab. . At the same time, Huawei has vigorously expanded the NB-IoT ecosystem through industry alliances, industry associations and other organizations to promote the in-depth application of NB-IoT technology in various industries. At present, there are 2,500 innovative members of the NB-IoT Alliance registered in the GSMA, involving 1,500 companies. With the support of industry associations, NB-IoT has been included in the industry standards for water, gas, street lighting, fire protection, and ground disaster monitoring. Among them, the number of connections in water, gas and other industries has reached 10 million. In the follow-up, Huawei will increase the implementation of the NB-IoT GLocal (Global+Local) ecological plan, copy the successful experience of China NB-IoT overseas, and jointly expand the foreign market with Chinese domestic partners.

As we all know, 5G commercial has arrived. In the 5G era, multi-network operation costs will become the main burden for operators. In order to improve operational efficiency, 2G and 3G will gradually withdraw from the network, and the migration of spectrum to a more efficient 4G will be the trend of the times. The target network of the era will be 4G+5G. Cao Ming emphasized that more than 20 operators around the world have closed 2G networks, and Chinese operators are also preparing for 2G/3G network retreat. Therefore, the industry has already realized the evolution trend of this technology, and has used NB-IoT technology to develop IoT terminals. This year, the number of new connections in China's NB-IoT has exceeded 2G.

In July of this year, both the Chinese delegation and the 3GPP submitted NB-IoT as a 5G candidate technology to the ITU (International Telecommunications Union), which means that NB-IoT will become part of the 5G technology. The currently deployed NB-IoT terminal can access the 5G network normally after the spectrum is allocated to the 5G NR (new air interface) in the future. Cao Ming finally pointed out that the R16 agreement, which will be frozen in March 2020, will definitely not define a new 5G LPWAN technology. NB-IoT will be the primary choice for LPWAN applications in the 5G era. All walks of life can make full use of the mature ecology of the current NB-IoT, accelerate the industry upgrade, and win the opportunity for the upcoming 5G Internet of Everything era.