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Sierra Wireless is building
the Internet of Things
Cellular LPWA for the IoT
The Low Power Wide Area technology of choice
Mobile World Congress, February 2016
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What are Low Power Wide Area technologies?
Requirements
Low data rates
Latency tolerant
High coverage
Permits
Low complexity/cost
Low power
Cellular (2G, 3G, 4G)
LPWA
WWAN
1km
WLAN
100m
WHAN
10m
WPAN
1m
100 kbps 1 Mbps 10 Mbps 100 Mbps
WWAN
10km
Speed
Range
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Low Power Wide Area – Technology Panorama
2015 2016 2017 2018
RPMA – Ingenu
UNB – Sigfox
LoRa – Semtech
Standardized
Proprietary
LTE-M
375 kbps
NB-IoT
20-80 kbps
EC-GSM-IoT
200 kbps
GSM
200 kbps
LTE Cat. 1
10 Mbps
Sierra Wireless at the forefront of innovation
Supporting all 3 standardized cellular LPWA technologies
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LPWA LTE-M live demo at MWC 2016
An LTE-M, Cat. 1 module,
the world’s first
with the following 3GPP
release 13 features:
Power Saving Mode
Extended Discontinuous Reception
(both power optimization features)
Live Demo
connected to
an Ericsson base station
and to Sierra Wireless’
IoT Acceleration Platform
on the public Internet
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Cellular LPWA – a Breakthrough for the IoT
Ultra Low Power
10-20 years lifetime
On AA batteries
(2500 mAh)
Deep Coverage
+18dB sensitivity
Open Range x 7
Basement Coverage
Low Complexity
75% Device
Complexity Reduction
Compared to LTE Cat-1
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Cellular LPWA – a Reliable Solution
Immediate Service
Global Coverage
447 Networks
143 Countries
Durable Investment
Long-term availability
Scalability
Flexibility
Trusted Ecosystem
Built-in Security
Solid supply chain
Healthy competition
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Cellular LPWA – Terminology Primer
A Terminology Headache?
• LTE-M, LTE-MTC: ”Long Term Evolution” / “Machine-Type Communications”
Continuous stream of improvements to the cellular technology to address massive IoT
Examples: Low Access Priority (for M2M devices), Power Saving Mode, Extended DRX, Extended Coverage…
• Cat-3, Cat-1, Cat-0, Cat-M, Cat-M1, Cat-M2: The LTE Device “Category”
Indication of a device’s maximum speed (and thus complexity, and thus cost)
Examples: Cat-3 = 100Mbps (DL); Cat-1 = 10Mbps(DL); Cat-0 = 1Mbps(DL); Cat-M(1) = 375kbps (UL)
• EC-GSM, EC-EGPRS, EC-GSM-IoT, NB-LTE, NB-M2M, NB-OFDMA, NB-CIoT, C-UNB
The various 2G and 4G-LTE technologies evaluated by 3GPP
The name of the resulting long-term 4G consensus is “NB-IoT”; for 2G it will be EC-GSM-IoT
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Cellular LPWA – The key take-away
The important thing to remember
Chips may well combine two or several technologies
They will be sold in 2017 on today’s 2G and 4G networks with the needed
Ultra Low Power Deep Coverage Low Complexity
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Focus on PSM – Power Saving Mode
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5a 5b 5c
6b
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0 Power Saving Mode or Off 4 μA or 0 μA --- ---
1 Wake-up or Boot 80 mA 0,185 s 14,80 mAs
2 Processing 45 mA 0,430 s 19,35 mAs
3 Look up cells 190 mA 0,915 s 173,85 mAs
4 Register onto network 320 mA 1,6 s 512,00 mAs
5 Processing 45 mA 4,09 s 184,05 mAs
6 Processing 80 mA 2,13 s 170,40 mAs
7 Listen to network pages 8 mAs each x 16 128,00 mAs
8 Actual data transmission 320 mA 1,6 s 512,00 mAs
9 Processing 45 mA 3,1 s 139,50 mAs
10 Idle mode 300 μA 7,07 s 2,12 mAs
11 Listen to network pages 8 mAs each X 16 128,00 mAs
TOTAL RED 989,62 mAs
TOTAL GREEN 994,45 mAs
TOTAL RED + GREEN 1984,07 mAs
Power Saving Mode (useful for outgoing data)
Lets the modem “hibernate” between data transmissions while
remembering its network state (no need to re-register)
Power consumption in hibernation: 4 μA
Gain on battery lifetime: x2 (compared to shutting modem off)
Ex: Tx 670 bytes / Rx 350 bytes on 2500mAh AA battery
1 transmission every 1 hour
1 transmission every 6 hours
1 transmission every 24 hours
=> 1 year battery life
=> 5 years battery life
=> 19 years battery life
With Power Saving Mode
Without Power Saving Mode (coming from “OFF”)
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Focus on EDRX – Extended Discontinuous Reception
Extended Discontinuous Reception (useful for incoming data)
Lets the modem listen more infrequently for incoming data
Maximum “listen interval” so far: every 2,57 seconds
Now the listen interval can be up to 52 minutes
1 listening every 1 minute
1 listening every 5 minutes
1 listening every 15 minutes
=> battery life x23
=> battery life x116
=> battery life x350
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Frequently asked questions
• What is it that we have in the demo at Mobile World Congress 2016?
It is an LTE-M, Category 1 module, the world’s first with the following 3GPP release 13 features:
“Power Saving Mode” and “Extended Discontinuous Reception” (both power optimization features)
• Is it a Cat-M (Category-M) or Cat-M1 module?
No. Cat-M(1) chipsets don’t event exist yet. It is an LTE-M (or LTE-MTC) module, Category Cat-1.
The Category (M1) is an indication of the module complexity, cost and speed.
“LTE-M” refers to a set of LTE features (like PSM or eDRX) optimizing LTE for the Internet of Things.
• Is this module available for sale?
Not yet, as we want to make it even better. But we will run trials this year with selected partners.
Commercial availability of LTE-M modules from Sierra is scheduled for early 2017.
• So you have LTE-M modules, ok. What about NB-IoT modules?
NB-IoT is another 4G technology for IoT, with other optimization choices.
The standard is being finalized right now, and eventually Sierra will of course offer NB-IoT modules.
What you may hear about others demoing NB-IoT at MWC2016 is a non-standard version of NB-IoT.
• What are the advantages of LTE-M modules compared to regular LTE modules?
Ultra Low Power, Deep Coverage and Reduced Complexity
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Sierra Wireless is building
the Internet of Things
More questions ?
Come and talk to us
ndamour@sierrawireless.com