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  • Author Author: papili
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CATM and/or NB-IoT

papili

The two low volume cellular technologies for IoT are CATM and NB-IoT. Both technologies are used for transmitting limited amounts of data over the cellular network. Both of these technologies ride on the cellular operators LTE network so coverage when fully deployed will be similar to the coverage you get on your cell phone. Both of these technologies have been predicted to explode in terms of the number of devices being placed on the network. Unfortunately, the uptake has been a lot slower than most had hoped. More and more, the number of devices appearing on the networks is increasing so we're starting to see that growth but it is still not to a point where we'd like to see it.

 

That being said, for higher bandwidth needs, devices will use CAT-1 or higher. For the low volume needs, CATM is a very viable technology. Several mobile chipsets exist from providers like Qualcomm, Sequans, Mediatek, and others. Module providers then take these cellular baseband modems and build modules to be used in end devices. Some of the key module providers include Quectel, uBlox, Telit, Nordic, Sequans, Gemalto, and others.

 

CATM can be used for applications that require up to a maximum of 1Mbps speeds and uses a bandwidth of 1.4Mhz. NB-IoT, on the other hand, uses speeds from 20 (UL) - 60 (DL) kbps, using a bandwidth of 200kHz. If you're application is to track stationary items that only require the transmission of a very minimum amount of data per day, the NB-IoT may be the technology for you. NB-IoT is not meant for mobile applications. If your tracking asset that moves and you need to know where it is at all times, then CATM is the better solution.

 

NB-IoT should be the cheaper solution to implement. The components will be slightly cheaper than CATM and the operators connectivity plans should also be cheaper than CATM.

 

The current issue with NB-IoT is its availability. NB-IoT is dominant in the Asian markets where AT&T and Verizon deployed CATM first and are now making NB-IoT available. T-Mobile was the only operator in the US supporting NB-IoT prior to Verizon and AT&T getting into the game.

 

Cellular offers many advantages over Wifi and other technologies. Mainly, security and automatic activation. Dealing with activation on a Wifi network is cumbersome and Wifi is more easily hacked.

 

So depending on your applications needs, CATM and/or NB-IoT are two technologies that should be considered.

 

AP

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  • in reply to cstanton

    I would say hands-down, yes! 

     

    From an IoT perspective, Wi-Fi has always been much more vulnerable to different types of attacks than cellular networks.

     

    One of the key factors in this is the provisioning of devices onto the network and this is one aspect of the security problem that network providers solved a long time ago.  Don't get me wrong, there are still vulnerabilities in cellular methods so it is not 100% bulletproof.  However, we still don't have many good, and widely adopted, methods for provisioning massive amounts of devices securely onto Wi-Fi networks without compromising security.  There are some new devices that are coming onto the market that will help with this, one of them being the Azure Sphere line of chips that have the support of Microsoft (and Avnet) behind them.  Those devices today are Wi-Fi only and they got some pretty good coverage during the Sensing the World Challenge a few months back.

     

    One thing I would like to highlight for slower adoption of cellular technologies is the regulatory certifications that are required for cellular devices is much more involved than most other common wireless standards.  As a result, many companies can spend 10s of thousands of dollars working through the regulatory phase of product development prior to releasing their product to market.  Luckily, some of the chipset suppliers mentioned, like Sequans, and providers like Verizon are taking this problem much more seriously and addressing this with new offerings to help lower the barriers to entry for new IoT devices.

     

    One such recently released product is Sequans Monarch Go which is a low-cost, pre-certified module that helps avoid a large portion of the certification barrier for engineers who are designing new IoT products which need LTE-M connectivity.

     

    I did a review of this in one of my blogs a while back if anyone is interested in learning more:   Networking with Sequans Monarch Go - Part I

     

    Best Regards,

     

    -Kevin