The number of CAT-M1 and NB-IoT connections tripled to almost 100 million in 2019, according to Ericsson.
In the latest, June, edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report the company is forecasting NB-IoT and Cat-M1 to account for 52 percent of all cellular IoT connections by the end of 2025.
Ericsson says it has identified 125 mobile service providers that have launched at least one of these networks and 25 percent have launched both. Telstra has offered CAT-M1 nationwide since February 2017. NB-IoT became available in major centres a year later.
Ericsson calls CAT-M1 and NB-IoT collectively “massive IoT technologies” and distinguishes them from “broadband IoT” and “critical IoT”. It says commercial devices for massive IoT include various types of meters, sensors, trackers and wearables.
Broadband IoT, according to Ericsson, mainly includes wide-area use cases that require higher throughput, lower latency and larger data volumes than massive IoT technologies can support. Critical IoT is used for time-critical communications in both wide- and local-area use cases that require guaranteed data delivery with specified latency targets.
According to Ericsson, LTE is already supporting many broadband IoT use cases, and by the end of 2025, 34 percent of cellular IoT connections will be broadband IoT, with 4G connecting the majority. With the introduction of 5G New Radio (NR) in old and new spectrum, throughput data rates will increase substantially for this segment.
Critical IoT, it says, will be introduced in 5G networks with the advanced time-critical communication capabilities of 5G New Radio.
5G support for critical IoT in 2021
“Deployment of the first modules supporting critical IoT use cases is expected in 2021. Typical use cases include cloud-based AR/VR, cloud robotics, autonomous vehicles, advanced cloud gaming, and real-time coordination and control of machines and processes.”
The company says the first 5G NR-capable IoT platforms have recently been released, and modules from several vendors are available, as well as tailored platforms for PCs and advanced wearables.
In the second half of 2020 and during 2021, it expects the range to expand to include products that will support use cases involving personal and commercial vehicles, cameras, industry routers and gaming.
“Such devices will initially support mobile broadband capabilities, but performance is expected to evolve towards time-critical communication capabilities where needed, via software upgrades on devices and networks,” Ericsson says.
