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Narrowband IoT data service. Very low power, low bandwidth, cheap, with increasingly great coverage. It’s like an offshoot of LTE but classified as a 5G technol

Narrowband IoT data service. Very low power, low bandwidth, cheap, with increasingly great coverage. It’s like an offshoot of LTE but classified as a 5G technology for massive numbers of low power internet connected devices.

SolubleSnake 6y ago
I am really surprised this isn't already more of a 'thing'. When I did my postgrad research project, back in 2016, I was using LoRaWAN and thought it was so obviously going to be huge in e.g. AgriTech. Surprised not that much has happened with it tbh.
- snovv_crash 6y ago
  Cheap LoRa chips are finally hitting the market for long enough that ecosystems can grow around them. As an example, for Radio Control vehicles (planes, drones, cars) there have been 3 different systems released over the past year or so, and now an open source system called ExpressLRS which is gaining traction.
CarelessExpert 6y ago
I have to admit, the idea of a run-of-the-mill security-hole-ridden IoT device being exposed to the bare internet over a wireless connection that's out of my control gives me the heebie-jeebies... and that's ignoring the possibilities for malicious use (e.g. using a low powered wireless connection for uncontrollable surveillance/data collection).
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  200% this. Pretty soon I'd have to live in a Faraday cage, or put all my devices in a Faraday case/jacket.
- g_p 6y ago
  The operators would argue this is where their "managed service" offering kicks in and gives you value. Most operators haven't figured out their business model for NB-IoT quite yet (at least in Europe) - they're still dabbling. Some seem likely to try pair it with enterprise "private APN" type solutions. Under such a setup, you can actually get quite an interesting system in place - the operator locks the SIM to a custom APN, and that APN only allows comms to a managed, operator-provided IoT backend. Then the operator's enterprise services team turns that into dashboards and other things the customer can use and access. In a sense, they're using "extra slack capacity" on their FDD cellular networks (as an NB-IoT carrier is only 200 kHz wide and can sit inside or adjacent to a regular 4G or 5G carrier), and delivering higher margin managed enterprise services. Some other comments point out the potential to use LoRa - indeed, although if you can use LoRa, you probably aren't the target market for NB-IoT. If you want to deploy 50 million smart meters, a nationwide existing network and managed service from the operator starts to get appealing, as does them handling security, isolating the devices onto a private APN, and helping you update devices in the field. If you are using LoRa, you need to handle this and deploy the infrastructure. To date though, I've seen lots of "unmanaged" NB-IoT testing taking place, but not a whole lot of the "full service managed offering". Otherwise I would agree entirely with your point about connecting modern IoT devices to the internet, but in this case I think it will end up for enterprise type deployments where they're restricting that for you.
DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
I've implemented some use-cases for t-mobile, they basically peddle our products as a whitelabel solution to municipalities. One of my biggest beef with nbIoT is that 90% of all the use-cases I designed would have been better of using LoRaWAN instead. The reason why nbIoT is chosen is obviously that it provides the operator recurring revenue via a data-SIM but apart from costs there are other massive drawbacks such as energy draw of an nbIoT enabled sensor when compared to LoRa. nbIoT is justified if I know that the data volume of my "solution" might increase due to feature/scope creep (and replacing the battery/sensor isn't going to become an annoyance in 2-3 years at end of life). For most use-case LoRaWAN makes more sense but doesn't have the same marketing budget that is available to T-mobile, Vodafone and Co.
- johnwalkr 6y ago
  I work adjacent to this space and LoRa is great (really great, the specs look impossible on paper) but everyone has been peddling proprietary cloud-based SaaS solutions that come and go every year, for about a decade now. For non-cloud/SaaS solutions, nothing seemed to be able to compete against the branding of wifi and bluetooth. I think this is the main reason it didn't take off. 802.11ah looked like it was going to finally become a good option, with wifi branding, but it somehow was never really released into the market.
schappim 5y ago
Most importantly for adoption, it is backed by the major Telcos.

SolubleSnake 6y ago

I am really surprised this isn't already more of a 'thing'. When I did my postgrad research project, back in 2016, I was using LoRaWAN and thought it was so obviously going to be huge in e.g. AgriTech. Surprised not that much has happened with it tbh.

snovv_crash 6y ago
Cheap LoRa chips are finally hitting the market for long enough that ecosystems can grow around them. As an example, for Radio Control vehicles (planes, drones, cars) there have been 3 different systems released over the past year or so, and now an open source system called ExpressLRS which is gaining traction.

CarelessExpert 6y ago

I have to admit, the idea of a run-of-the-mill security-hole-ridden IoT device being exposed to the bare internet over a wireless connection that's out of my control gives me the heebie-jeebies... and that's ignoring the possibilities for malicious use (e.g. using a low powered wireless connection for uncontrollable surveillance/data collection).

SubiculumCode 6y ago
200% this. Pretty soon I'd have to live in a Faraday cage, or put all my devices in a Faraday case/jacket.
g_p 6y ago
The operators would argue this is where their "managed service" offering kicks in and gives you value. Most operators haven't figured out their business model for NB-IoT quite yet (at least in Europe) - they're still dabbling. Some seem likely to try pair it with enterprise "private APN" type solutions. Under such a setup, you can actually get quite an interesting system in place - the operator locks the SIM to a custom APN, and that APN only allows comms to a managed, operator-provided IoT backend. Then the operator's enterprise services team turns that into dashboards and other things the customer can use and access. In a sense, they're using "extra slack capacity" on their FDD cellular networks (as an NB-IoT carrier is only 200 kHz wide and can sit inside or adjacent to a regular 4G or 5G carrier), and delivering higher margin managed enterprise services. Some other comments point out the potential to use LoRa - indeed, although if you can use LoRa, you probably aren't the target market for NB-IoT. If you want to deploy 50 million smart meters, a nationwide existing network and managed service from the operator starts to get appealing, as does them handling security, isolating the devices onto a private APN, and helping you update devices in the field. If you are using LoRa, you need to handle this and deploy the infrastructure. To date though, I've seen lots of "unmanaged" NB-IoT testing taking place, but not a whole lot of the "full service managed offering". Otherwise I would agree entirely with your point about connecting modern IoT devices to the internet, but in this case I think it will end up for enterprise type deployments where they're restricting that for you.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago

I've implemented some use-cases for t-mobile, they basically peddle our products as a whitelabel solution to municipalities. One of my biggest beef with nbIoT is that 90% of all the use-cases I designed would have been better of using LoRaWAN instead. The reason why nbIoT is chosen is obviously that it provides the operator recurring revenue via a data-SIM but apart from costs there are other massive drawbacks such as energy draw of an nbIoT enabled sensor when compared to LoRa. nbIoT is justified if I know that the data volume of my "solution" might increase due to feature/scope creep (and replacing the battery/sensor isn't going to become an annoyance in 2-3 years at end of life). For most use-case LoRaWAN makes more sense but doesn't have the same marketing budget that is available to T-mobile, Vodafone and Co.

johnwalkr 6y ago
I work adjacent to this space and LoRa is great (really great, the specs look impossible on paper) but everyone has been peddling proprietary cloud-based SaaS solutions that come and go every year, for about a decade now. For non-cloud/SaaS solutions, nothing seemed to be able to compete against the branding of wifi and bluetooth. I think this is the main reason it didn't take off. 802.11ah looked like it was going to finally become a good option, with wifi branding, but it somehow was never really released into the market.

schappim 5y ago

Most importantly for adoption, it is backed by the major Telcos.