Why do we need IoT for our own development? What is Narrowband IoT?

Why do we need IoT

In recent years, the concept of IoT is very popular, and technologies related to 5g narrowband iotIoT, such as NB-IoT, LoRa, eMTC, etc., often appear in front of our eyes, in the news and in exhibitions. In fact, "Internet of Things" is not a new word, it was called so 20 years ago. Moreover, "IoT is very important", "IoT must be hot", "IoT must be able to change the world" have been said for many years.

Why do we need the Internet of Things?

Since the beginning of mankind, there has been communication. The history of communication is as long as the history of mankind. You could say that without it, there would be no human society.

In other words, the history of human society development is the history of development through communication network technology. From the beacon, to the post, to the radio telegraph, fixed a telephone, cell phone, are all Chinese communication and information technology.

In recent decades, the development of communication technology has basically connected everyone to the Internet through cell phones. Except for the less developed areas, the expression "one cell phone per capita" is not an exaggeration. We can say that the goal of connecting everyone has basically been achieved. Will this be the end of communication technology? Obviously not. Although we have achieved an unprecedented level of human connection, we are still far from being connected to the world. In this world, in addition to "people", there is also "stuff". This "something" includes not only animals, but also plants and all inanimate objects. The purpose of human connection is to transfer information, to connect objects, and to transfer information faster. In order to survive and produce more efficiently, humans cannot do without effective tools to speed up the dissemination of information. It started with sticks and stones, to bronze and steel, to steam engines, to computers. We use more and more tools increasingly developed tools.

Before the evolution of vehicles, without developed tools and technology, a person's control was very limited - to move a stone, to catch a fish. Today, with the help of developed tools and technology, a person's energy and efficiency can be maximized. For example, it is possible to drive a truck weighing several tons with only one driver. Communication tools are also communication tools, and with the help of powerful communication networks, the human control can be extended indefinitely. It is no longer the objects around us that humans can control, but distant objects, or huge systems. For example, a city-level system, or even a national system. The Internet of Things is a tool that helps you connect and control everything.

So far, two or three decades have passed. People have been talking about the IoT and touting its value. But it's been in a "well received" situation. Why? Not because of lack of demand, not because of lack of funding, but because of immature technology. In the past, IoT was based on wireless local area network (WLAN) technology. IoT endpoints were connected to wireless routers or special gateway devices. Your cameras, door and window sensors, smart lights could only be connected to Wi-Fi and controlled by Wi-Fi, just like your PC at home. However, the application scenario of wireless LAN does not fully meet people's needs because of its high power consumption and short transmission distance, which cannot meet the requirements of industrial scenarios.

Thus, communication information technology companies have developed to another type of approach that does not aim at the data processing speed of student transmission systems, but is known for achieving long-distance, low-frequency and low-consumption transmission - Narrowband IoT.

Nb-IoT (narrowband IoT)

Narrowband IoT has become an important branch of IoT. nb-iot is built on cellular networks that consume only about 180 kHz bandwidth and can be deployed directly on gsm networks, umts networks or lte networks to reduce deployment costs and smooth upgrades.

B-IoT is a new technology in IoT that supports cellular data connectivity for low-power devices in wide area networks, also known as low-power wide area networks (LPWAN). b-IoT supports efficient connectivity for devices with long standby times and high network connectivity requirements. It is claimed that NB-IoT devices can improve battery life by at least 10 years while providing very comprehensive coverage of indoor cellular data connections.

Wide coverage, high gain, large coverage area, good signal carry quality, and network culture construction with low cost!

Low power consumption, 10 years of battery life, not dependent on power and wire. Absolutely no "wires"!

A large number of connections, decided it supports a large number of terminals, a community can hold a few dozen seconds of points!

Low cost, each communication module is only a few dozen dollars (or even a few dollars later), cheap!

What makes NB-IoT able to do through such low power? It is closely related to its own three management work life states, and these three states will be able to switch automatically according to the different configuration parameters of the enterprise.

Association (association state)

The module can send and receive data when it is registered in the network. After a period of time without data interaction, the module will enter idle mode and can be configured.

Idle (idle state):

Can send and receive information data, and receive downlink for data will enter the Connected state, no data interaction role over a period of enterprise work will choose to enter PSM mode, the time can be configured.

PSM (energy-saving mode)

In this mode, the terminal turns off the transceiver and does not listen to the pager at the wireless end. Thus, although it remains registered in the network, signaling is inaccessible, it cannot receive downlink data, and the power is low.

The duration is configured by the core network (T3412). When there is uplink data to be transmitted or when the TAU cycle ends, it will enter the connected state.

It is the enterprise due to its three modes that makes standby for ten years an accomplishable task, because NB-IoT's own development has the advantages of low power consumption, wide coverage, low cost and large capacity, which makes it possible not only to conduct extensive research applications in many different vertical management industries, such as remote meter reading, asset quality tracking, intelligent control of street lights, intelligent Chinese agriculture, etc.

Now that the 5G era has arrived and the concept of 5GIoT has been proposed, various technologies will complement each other and our smart living and working experience will become richer and richer. We believe that in the future, the interconnection of everything will be far more than what we have now, and it remains to be seen how brilliant the evolution of the times and the sparks of various IoT technologies will be.