In the era of Internet of Things, all Internet-based innovations are premised on "connectivity", and different application scenarios require different connectivity technologies.lte cat 4 With the alternation of old and new technologies, the needs and scenarios of industry users have become more different, and the medium-rate market between high-rate and low-rate scenarios is booming.

In the face of the special needs of some special industries for low and medium rates, ultra-stable connections, and low costs, how to choose the right connectivity technology from multi-dimensional considerations such as speed,lte cat1 cost, network coverage, and technology maturity? It has become a problem that the IoT industry needs to consider.

In the rate of market demand accounts for 30% of the case, 4G LTE bear a heavy responsibility

In the distribution of cellular IoT connections, 60% of the scenarios require narrowband networks to provide "low rate" connections, about 10% require "high rate" connections, and the remaining 30% require "medium rate" connections. The remaining 30% require "medium-rate" connectivity.

At present, the cellular network for connection information technology development is in the window period of the old and new. 2G, 3G retired network is the inevitable requirements of the mobile Internet communication equipment replacement choice, but also our current international practice of different countries. It is foreseeable that after the retirement of 2G/3G in the future, the remaining several cellular network structures connecting enterprise technicians will play their respective roles in various scenarios of the Internet of Things.

4G/5G-based IoT technology (NB-IoT + 4G + 5GNR) will gradually replace the original 2G/3G IoT technology to provide greater bandwidth, lower latency, deeper coverage, and 5G will present high-speed scenarios with greater bandwidth and extremely stringent latency requirements.

NB-IoT by virtue of wide coverage, low power consumption, low cost, large connections and other characteristics will not be able to meet the enterprise large-scale narrow band low rate for scene design needs, in the smart meter reading and other small data volume, small rate of different scenarios as well as applications.

With the upcoming withdrawal of 3G network, 4G LTE and EMTC will be able to mainly carry voice, medium-rate scenarios, but due to the inactivity of domestic operators in EMTC, EMTC industrial chain is not open enough, not strong enough, and it is difficult to realize the construction of the network in the short term, so 4G LTE will take the responsibility of its medium-rate connection scenarios.

Why does LTE Cat 1 stand out because of the special needs of niche industries?

However, although 4G LTE will play a very important social role in cellular IoT technology connectivity, but even if it is the medium rate to carry out the scene, the needs of different market segments and service industries are not the same.

In particular, the public network intercom, sharing economy, financial payments, wearable/tracking, intelligent energy, industrial control, etc. on the module cost, use of power consumption, communication delay and other capabilities have higher requirements, but less sensitive to the rate of the industry applications, but also the same need to be more suitable for these specific scenarios of connectivity technology.

To summarize, the rate scenarios in LTE-connected IoT can be supported by Cat 1 and Cat 4. LTE Cat 4, although it supports high speed and low latency, with excellent network coverage, is not suitable for the above industry applications that do not have high requirements for rate, but are sensitive to latency and cost, so the opportunity for LTE Cat.1 has arisen.

If CAT 1 is used in IT scenarios that require a certain speed (mainly low speed), high speed mobility and voice support, it has the following three advantages.

Global coverage and network maturity. The 4G network, which has been in commercial use for many years, has basically realized global coverage, comprehensively covering the network bands of major carriers in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, etc. With the help of 4G network infrastructure, Cat 1 can also provide IoT users with anytime, anywhere access. As global 4G LTE operators are deployed based on the lowest 3GPP Release 8 protocol version, operators do not need to upgrade their networks, and only need simple parameter configuration to allow Cat 1 terminals to access the network.

Better network, better functionality. Compared with NB-IoT, which is a bit short on voice, SMS, connection timeliness, cell switching, etc., Cat 1 supports terminals with downlink rates up to 10Mbps and uplink rates up to 5Mbps, which enables higher performance connections and lower latency of <100ms.

Lower cost and cost-effective. Although the maximum uplink rate of 50Mbps, the maximum downlink rate of 150Mbps Cat 4 rate is higher, but the current mainstream Cat 4 in power consumption, integration, price is difficult to meet the IoT application needs of some industries, while Cat 1 takes into account the advantages of standard, performance, power consumption, cost, especially the cost of nearly 30% lower than Cat 4.

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