Release 14 defines different kind of features. Most of them cannot be supported without a hardware upgrade on current modules.
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Will the current hardware support Rel. 14 via a firmware update?
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How does NB-IoT fit together with 5G?
NB-IoT can be regarded as a precursor for 5G and will be an important part of the 5G technologies. Specifically for massive IoT applications NB-IoT is a crucial technological innovation that unlocks the door for the next generation of IoT architectures and services and already provides meaningful indications for future value creation opportunities.
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When will Release 14 features (Cat-NB2) be available?
Rel. 14 has been finalized in March 2017 and technical specifications released in June 2017. They will gradually be integrated into network components and chipsets/modules according to their usual development cycles. The availability of each new functionality depends on its respective complexity and will be announced after its development and testing.
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Which features will be supported in Release 14?
Most notably, Rel. 14 (Cat-NB2) will support,mobility, single-cell multicast, enhanced device positioning, reduced latency and improved power consumption (14 dBm output power reduction to enable further module cost savings) and other technical enhancements.
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Where is NB-IoT roaming available?
Last update: 22.02.2021
NB-IoT roaming is available for the Global SIM of Deutsche Telekom.
The LPWA tariff “Europe Zone 1” currently provides NB-IoT roaming across 17 countries. These include:
- Deutsche Telekom’s networks in Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, Poland and Croatia
- Swisscom’s network in: Switzerland and Liechtenstein
- Vodafone’s networks in Spain, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom
- Telia’s networks in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway
- Telenet’s network and Orange’s network in Belgium
In European countries for which DT has no NB-IoT roaming agreements yet, multimode devices with the Global SIM can utilize 2G and 3G instead, and also LTE-M (currently in Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Latvia).
For a full list of our Mobile-IoT roaming partners including non-European partners, please go to our Roaming Network Information page.
Our NB-IoT (and LTE-M) roaming footprint is being gradually extended with further countries, so stay tuned!
By the way, there also a consolidation of all coverage maps of Deutsche Telekom countries.
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Why is Carrier Aggregation not included in NB-IoT?
Carrier Aggregation, i.e. the linking of spectrum bands (Carriers) to a new virtual frequency band is a means to to offer high data rates for LTE-Advanced. However, NB-IoT is specifically designed for use cases with very low data rates and volumes, so there is no requirement for high bandwidth.
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Which frequencies are used per country?
It is planned that 900MHz (Band 8.) and 800MHz (Band 20) will be supported by the Deutsche Telekom NatCos in Europe:
- Austria - B8 (900 MHz)
- Croatia - B20 (800 MHz)
- Czech Republic - B20 (800MHz), eventually B8 (900 MHz)
- Germany - B8 (900 MHz)
- Greece - B20 (800MHz)
- Hungary - B20 (800 MHz), eventually B8 (900 MHz)
- Poland - B20 (800MHz)
- Slovakia - B20 (800MHz), eventually B8 (900 MHz)
- The Netherlands - B8 (900 MHz)
- USA - B12 (700 MHz), also B2 (1900 MHz), B4 (1700 MHz)
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Does NB-IoT support inter-cell handover?
No. The kind of applications that NB-IoT is used for does not require handover, because there is typically no continuous data stream. It is sufficient, also for location features, to re-attach when the end device is moved to a different location.
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What accuracy of location information is expected from triangulation?
The design goal for the accuracy of triangulation is approximately 50 meters (according to 3GPP) for 2/3 of location requests. Deutsche Telekom is currently evaluating triangulation and its performance internally.
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What features does NB-IoT offer to localize assets?
As an alternative to today’s GPS NB-IoT will offer three additional localization features:
- Cell ID,
- Enhanced Cell ID (E-Cell ID) and
- Triangulation (OTDOA).
Cell ID is the least accurate feature (but still appropriate for some use cases). E-Cell ID relies on UE-assisted and network-based methods. Triangulation is the most accurate. These localization features are already included in the new version of the NB-IoT specification (3GPP Rel. 14), but it is too early to say when they will be implemented by device/network vendors and network operators.
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What is the latency of NB-IoT?
The term “latency” relates to one-way, downlink or uplink communication. It does not include the time needed to establish a connection between the server and the device. If the device is in power saving mode, it will only receive or send data after it wakes up. According to measurements on current test setups with pre-commercial radio modules, data transmissions typically exhibit a latency of less than a second. In scenarios involving deployments in poor coverage areas, latency may increase up to 7-10 seconds. That said, NB-IoT technology is continuously being enhanced, so current figures are expected to improve with successive releases of the specification.
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Does NB-IoT provide both uplink and downlink communication?
NB-IoT supports bidirectional communication, but the more common direction is uplink transmission. Only half-duplex is supported, i.e. uplink and downlink don’t take part simultaneously.
- UL peak rate up to 230 kbps
- DL peak rate up to 250 kbps
Please note that these are not the datarates meanwhile. Current datarates are maximum 20Kbps UL/DL due to single tone transmission.
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Which protocols over the air interface are supported?
There are the following possibilities for the data transmission between end device and APN (air interface):
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IP: Depending on the capabilities of the radio module IPv4 and IPv6 are supported (IPv6 is still not live in in all Deutsche Telekom’s networks). Here, UDP is the common and recommended transport layer protocol. TCP is in principle supported on the air interface (and specified in the 3GPP standard), but not recommended due to the resulting higher data volume. Likewise, HTTP and HTTPS over the air interface cannot reasonably be implemented because they rely on TCP and demand additional data volume for their overhead. But TCP, HTTP and HTTPS can of course be used between APN and server.
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Non-IP: If possible an Non-IP based data transmission is recommended for NB-IoT, which reduces transmitted data volume (as UDP/IP protocol overhead is saved) and further increases security. Please note that this is only possible with a private APN.
In both cases application protocols like MQTT-SN or COAP can be used, exceptionally also MQTT (only if via UDP from ver. 5).
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Does NB-IoT support delay-sensitive data (QoS)?
No QoS concept comparable to LTE has been defined for NB-IoT, as NB-IoT is not for delay-sensitive data packages.
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What security features does NB-IoT provide?
NB-IoT provides security features based on known LTE technology. The security features cover three categories:
- Confidentiality: The customer payload is encrypted between NB-IoT modem and Cellular IoT Serving Gateway Node (CSGN). Between the private APN and server, the traffic is protected using IPSec (device cannot be accessed from the Internet).
- Integrity & authentication: The NB-IoT device authenticates itself at the network, based on known LTE registration procedures (SIM based authentication)
- Availability: If a redundant APN has been ordered the APN is distributed across two geo-redundant CSGNs.
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How does NB-IoT ensure a Deep Indoor Penetration?
Deep indoor penetration is enabled by robust narrowband modulation techniques and redundancy (repetitions of transmissions). Dependent on the coverage situation of the device three different Coverage Extension levels (CE0, CE1, CE2), can be used. The higher the CE level the…
- more repetitions of the transmitting signal
- higher the power consumption of the device
- lower the throughput
- higher the latency
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What is the typical battery lifetime of an NB-IoT end device?
NB-IoT is designed for use cases where end devices need no maintenance for a long period of time. The battery lifetime depends on several factors: power consumption of the radio module, power consumption of the sensor, how often messages are transmitted and the coverage conditions of the end device, among others.
The 3GPP estimated that for a setup with average radio modules and sensors transmitting at a moderate frequency (e.g. 2-3 times a week) in good coverage conditions using two AA cells a battery lifetime of up to 10 years can be expected. However, deviations must be expected in different setups with higher frequency of transmissions i.e. Smart Parking.
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Can PSM timers be dynamically set?
“T3324” is the timer for the PSM Activity Timer (how long the Idle Mode lasts before PSM mode is started). It depends of the device request, i.e. if the device requests 10s than MME accepts since the activation of dynamic PSM.
“T3412” is the timer for the Long Periodic TAU (how long the UE can stay ATTACHed before the packet core releases the session. This value is currently set to 310 hours default. The UE may request a value, but currently this is overwritten by the network default. This behavior will change in the future.
Both as dynamic PSM AT and dynamic LP-TAU will allow to retain the values proposed by UE. Most of the operators within DT’s footprint support dynamic PSM and LP-TAU, but may differ in min./max. values.
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Which power saving features are covered by NB-IoT over classical LTE?
Power saving mode (PSM) and Long Periodic TAU (LP-TAU) are covered by NB-IoT over classical LTE.
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Which power saving features does NB-IoT provide? Is it possible to wake up a device when a power saving feature is active?
NB-IoT has three power saving features:
- PSM (Power Saving Mode): Puts radio module into sleep mode to save power. When a power saving feature is active, it is not possible to initiate a downlink connection from the server to the device. It can only be woken up by a timer or own sensors. Upon wake-up, since the data session (PDP context) stays valid, no energy is needed to re-register (re-attach) the device at the network.
- Long Periodic TAU (LP-TAU): Extends the standard sleeping interval by setting a long TAU (Tracking Area Update) period.
- eDRX: Useful if frequent paging (“listening”) is required. By switching off the receive section of the radio module for few seconds or more, the UE is able to save power. Whilst not providing the same levels of power reduction as PSM, eDRX may provide a good compromise between device reachability and power consumption.
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Will multi-mode capable SIM cards be offered that support 2G, 3G, 4G and LTE-M besides NB-IoT?
The NB-IoT service offering has started in all countries with pure NB-IoT SIM cards. In Germany, Austria and the Netherlands Multimode SIM option (NB-IoT, LTE-M, 2G and 3G) is supported.
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Which SIM types will be used for NB-IoT devices?
Deutsche Telekom supports all current SIM formats, including the embedded SIM Form Factor (MFF). eSIM as of eUICC currently does not fit with the NB-IoT business model due to high costs. Instead, a more suitable option for NB-IoT use-cases is nuSIM, which is currently in launch preparation. Find out more about nuSIM.
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Is the technology SIM-based?
Yes, NB-IoT always comes with a SIM card, as it features LTE-like security, which is based on standardization and specifications of 3GPP. A standardized SIM profile also allows international usage of NB-IoT on the networks of foreign mobile network operators as soon as roaming is agreed and deployed. NB-IoT is always SIM-based, but different form factors will be offered.