March 13, 2019
Narrow band-Internet of Things (NB-IoT) has just joined the low power wide area network (LPWAN) community. Unlike most of its competitors, NB-IoT did not emerge from a blank slate. Indeed, it is closely linked to Long Term Evolution (LTE), from which it inherits many of the features that undoubtedly determine its behavior. In this paper, we empirically explore the boundaries of this technology, analyzing from a user’s point of view critical characteristics such as energy consumption, reliability, and delays. The results show that its performance in terms of energy is comparable and even outperforms, in some cases, an LPWAN reference technology like LoRa, with the added benefit of guaranteeing delivery. However, the high variability observed in both energy expenditure and network delays call into question its suitability for some applications, especially those subject to service-level agreements.
Read full articleOur newsletter will keep you up to date on the latest industry trends, technical innovations and customer success stories.
Please select one or all industries you are interested in.