3GPP standardises LPWA technologies

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has standardised three low-power, wide-area (LPWA) technologies in licensed spectrum in Release 13.

The specifications, which were completed on 24 June, address the growing IoT market and include a new technology called Narrow-Band IoT (NB-IoT), as well as pre-existing evolved technologies, EC-GSM-IoT and LTE MTC Cat-M1.

LPWA networks are an emerging, high-growth area of the IoT that complement and extend conventional wide area networks that make use of 2G, 3G and 4G cellular technologies.

These new standards will enable operators to optimise their existing high-quality mobile network infrastructure through an upgrade to EC-GSM-IoT for 2G networks and LTE-MTC for LTE networks, while NB-IoT can use both 2G and 4G spectrum to deliver a secure, reliable and robust performance.

LPWA networks are designed for M2M applications that have low data rates, require long battery lives and operate unattended for long periods of time, often in remote locations.

They will be used for a wide variety of applications such as industrial asset tracking, safety monitoring, water and gas metering, smart grids, city parking, vending machines and city lighting.

In a statement, industry body the GSMA said it welcomed the development.

“The GSMA established the Mobile IoT Initiative with the specific purpose of aligning the mobile industry behind common and complementary LPWA technologies in licensed spectrum, and we are pleased that the industry has moved so quickly to adopt them and that they have now been ratified by 3GPP,” said Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer, GSMA.

“Mobile operators have already started a number of pilots around the world and this agreement over common standards will help accelerate the development of commercial solutions and ensure they are in market much faster, providing customers with more choice.”

Image courtesy ITU.