Guided reading:

The ITU-R wp5d conference held by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was successfully concluded on July 9. This conference made a major resolution on the international mobile communication system (IMT). An important highlight is that Nb IOT and NR have officially become 5g standards together. This is a major historical moment for the global science and technology industry!

The ITU-R wp5d meeting held by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was successfully concluded on July 9. This meeting made major resolutions on the international mobile communication system (IMT):3GPP technology is officially accepted as ITU imt-2020 5g technical standard.Specifically:The adopted 3GPP technology includes 3GPP NR NB IOT RIT submitted by China, 3GPP NR RIT submitted by Korea, and NR LTE SRIT and NR RIT submitted by 3GPP. These four 5g technology submissions are equivalent, so they are integrated into 3GPP technology and passed together.

Among them,An important highlight is that Nb IOT and NR have officially become 5g standards together, which is a major historical moment for the global science and technology industry!I still remember that on July 17, 2019, the Chinese delegation recommended these two technologies to ITU, and 3GPP also recommended NB IOT to ITU as 5g technology. Now the standard dust has been settled, which reflects that Nb IOT has been widely recognized as 5g technology.

In 2015, ITU officially released the vision and requirements of 5g, which made it clear that 5g must support three scenarios: enhanced mobile communication (embB), low delay and high reliability (urllc) and massive Internet of things connection (mmtc). 3GPP standards experts then carried out 5g technology standardization research to meet ITU's requirements for the next generation mobile communication network. In March 2019, R15 standard was frozen to fully support the embB scenario; Recently, 3GPP announced the freezing of 5g R16 standard, in which the core highlight is the enhanced function of urllc; Now, Nb IOT is officially incorporated into 5g standard and has become the core technology of mmtc scene.So far, the core support standards for the three 5g scenarios have been ready to lay the foundation for accelerating the commercial use of 5g.

Map source network

NB IOT has officially become the 5g standard, which will undoubtedly have a far-reaching impact on the whole industry. We can analyze it from the following four aspects.

In June 2016, 3GPP frozen the first standard of Nb IOT, and the first cellular network dedicated to the Internet of things came out. With the promotion of 5g standard by 3GPP, the pattern of global unification of 5g standard has been formed, and Nb IOT has also been included in 5g family and become a core part of 5g mmtc scene.

According to the previous standardization plan of 3GPP, R16 version will realize all functions of urllc and mmtc. At the 79th plenary session of 3GPP wireless access network held in Chennai, India in March 2018, in the proposal for R16, the plenary session made it clear that the use cases of low-power wide area Internet of things will not be studied and standardized in R16 version 5g NR, and the low-power wide area Internet of things will continue to rely on the evolution of Nb IOT and EMTC. NB IOT and EMTC jointly undertake the important task of supporting 5g mmtc scenario.

It is the consensus reached by 3GPP experts on the basis of Nb IOT evaluation research that mmtc will no longer start a new stove.The core requirement of 5g mmtc is that the connection density reaches 1 million equipment connections per square kilometer. Reports submitted by several companies and organizations show that Nb IOT can meet the requirement of ITU. Therefore, from the perspective of technical standards, Nb IOT does meet the vision and KPI stringent requirements of ITU for 5g. It is natural that ITU decides to formally incorporate it into 5g standards this time.

In my opinion, Nb IOT has officially become the core component of 5g standard, which is equivalent to eating a "reassurance" for the Internet of things industry chain, because the inclusion of 5g standard means a longer life cycle on the one hand and a globally unified technology evolution on the other hand, which will greatly reduce the risk of enterprise commercialization.

First, a longer technology life cycle ensures the industry's return on investment

5g commercial has just started. It is expected that 5g will be the mainstream of global mobile communication in the next 10-20 years. NB IOT has obtained the official identity of 5g family. Its life cycle is synchronized with other 5g technologies. It will serve as 5g mmtc for massive Internet of things access in the next 10-20 years.

China Mobile has made it clear that "by the end of 2020, stop adding 2G IOT", and the IOT devices that originally relied on 2G access began to migrate to NB IOT and cat 1.

For industrial chain enterprises, the longer cycle will ensure the fixed investment in NB IOT field.For example, the operator's investment in NB IOT network actually constitutes a part of 5g investment, which is a long-term investment for the future. The operator will continue to operate the network for more than 10 years, and long-term operation can ensure its return on investment. At the same time, upstream and downstream enterprises of the industrial chain can also plan long-term product, system and scheme roadmap.

From the perspective of industry users, there are more scenarios with low rate and massive Internet of things connections and long life cycle. Many terminals need to run for 5-10 years or even longer under battery power supply. Internet of things equipment manufacturers know that the cost of the communication module itself is actually very low compared with the travel and labor costs of replacing the communication module. If the communication modules need to be replaced one by one because the network stops service, it will cause a huge burden to enterprises. Therefore, Internet of things users naturally have a rigid demand for long-term services of network infrastructure. Under the background of 2G network frequency reduction and de networking, there is a great risk for Internet of things users to choose 2G connection. NB IOT is officially incorporated into 5g standard, and its network has been operated for more than 10 years, which eliminates this concern for users and ensures the long-term connection of Internet of things terminals.

Secondly, unified technology evolution ensures the new requirements of the Internet of things

At present, the 5g R16 standard has been frozen, but the 5g standard will continue to evolve to meet the growing market demand for mobile communications. As the core component of 5g standard, Nb IOT is also evolving continuously, and is also incorporated into the overall framework of 5g evolution to form synergy with other 5g standards.

For the industry, the unified evolution of standards is of great significance. Compared with Nb R13 / R14 / R15 standard, Nb R16 standard is very stable on the air interface, that is, it takes into account the technical evolution, so as to ensure the compatibility with previous versions of products and meet the consistent requirements of 3GPP standard evolution. Thus, the new stage of Nb IOT air interface standard can be compatible with the previous version. Vertically, Nb IOT and other 5g standards perform their respective functions and jointly cover most communication connection scenarios. A set of 5g standards can meet the diversified and complex connection needs of users without duplication of work. This means that the industry does not need to worry about the incompatibility of standards in the formulation of product development routes, and the same operator can meet the diversified connection needs.

For example, in the overall evolution of 5g R16 standard, Nb IOT has been fully integrated as a 5g component, such as NB IOT coexisting with 5g NR and Nb IOT accessing 5g core network. In terms of meeting the requirements of the Internet of things, it further reduces terminal power consumption, improves spectrum efficiency and enhances interoperability.

The mobile communication network has developed into the 5g era, forming a global unified standard. The formal inclusion of Nb IOT into the 5g standard also fully reflects the strong inclusiveness of 5g. Behind this global unified standard, it is also driven by the need of the industry to reduce complexity and cost. For low-power, low-speed and massive connection scenarios, incorporating the unified standard of 5g family and clarifying the evolution path undoubtedly also supports the clear evolution path of user products and applications, giving users confidence to a certain extent.

Long before the freezing of the first version of Nb IOT standard, the industry began the journey of Nb IOT ecological construction. Different from the traditional communication industry, the Internet of things not only involves all links of the ICT industry, but also needs the participation of various vertical industries. Therefore, the exploration of industrial ecology is carried out at a broader level.

Open laboratory played a key role in the early development of Nb IOT.For example, in 2016, Huawei and Vodafone announced the establishment of the world's first NB IOT open laboratory to provide a pre integration test environment for application developers, terminals, module and chip manufacturers. Industrial ecological enterprises can take this opportunity to carry out network solution verification, new application innovation, terminal integration and product certification. Subsequently, Nb IOT open laboratories were established in many places around the world. Many manufacturers engaged in NB IOT product and scheme development in the early stage said more than once that the open laboratory greatly reduced the difficulty and cost of its development in the early stage of industrial development.

Deep integration and joint work with vertical industries are also important work for NB IOT Ecological Exploration and practice. A typical case is that in the past few years, operators, communication equipment manufacturers and terminals have jointly launched multiple industry-based Internet of things standards with different vertical industry associations, alliances and leading enterprises to integrate NB IOT related capabilities into their own standards of various industries. For example, the smart gas meter reading system based on Nb IOT Technology issued by China Urban Gas Association, the Internet of things water meter issued by the Ministry of housing and urban rural development, as well as the industrial standards such as home appliances and fire protection, have accelerated the application of Nb IOT in these industries.

After several years of efforts, the ecological construction of Nb IOT industry has achieved initial results.For example, the domestic NB IOT chip field has formed a multi supplier pattern of leading enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises. Dozens of mainstream module manufacturers have NB IOT products. At present, the cost of Nb IOT module has formed an advantage over 2G, and the application industry has already broken through the initial public utilities and landed in a large number of industries.

Since NB IOT is incorporated into 5g family, Nb IOT industrial ecology will also be an indispensable and important part of 5g industrial ecology.The construction of industrial ecology of Nb IOT in recent years has laid a foundation for the large-scale implementation of 5g and the further construction of industrial ecology in the future. Opening laboratory construction, jointly promoting benchmarking cases, jointly formulating industry standards and publishing technical white papers are also important contents for the industry to promote the ecological construction of 5g in the application of thousands of lines and hundreds of industries.

At present, the number of domestic NB IOT connections has exceeded 100 million, and Nb IOT has become a real 5g pioneer. Of course, the pioneer lies not only in its connection scale, but also in driving operators and industries to think deeply about the changes of ICT to the industry.

Before 5g, various enterprises in the mobile communication industry chain were more faced with consumer market services. Although a large number of enterprises and industry technical solutions were specially served, on the one hand, the penetration was low, on the other hand, they did not go deep into the vertical industries and the core production and business processes of enterprises. The broader market of 5g is the Internet of things demand of various vertical industries, which helps bring digital transformation to various vertical industries. As Miao Wei, Minister of industry and information technology, said, "80% of 5g is used for the connection between things".

NB IOT has been positioned as object-oriented communication since its birth. In recent years, Nb IOT has continuously served a large number of industries and improved, optimized and even changed the production and operation of some industries. For example, with the application of Nb IOT, the gas industry not only realizes remote meter reading, but also starts gas big data operation based on this, and gas operators form some new business models; Based on Nb IOT, white appliances form a new product form and mode of sharing and time-sharing leasing.

In these practices, Nb IOT practitioners must penetrate into the production and operation process of a large number of vertical industries and have an in-depth understanding of the digital needs of vertical industries. At present, 5g business is accelerating. In addition to the personal consumer market, 5g practitioners need to go deep into the to B market and must also have an in-depth understanding of the industry's digital needs. They go to the field, factory workshop and vertical industry practitioners to jointly design 5g application solutions. NB IOT's previous industry experience enriches 5g industry practice, It can also be said that 5g has taken the first step to further expand to B market.

For many 5g practitioners, Nb IOT may have become a good "stepping stone" for them to enter the vertical market. For example, if a manufacturing enterprise has previously deployed NB IOT asset management and energy management solutions, and there may be demand for HD video monitoring, machine vision, industrial automation and wireless substitution under the current 5g commercial background, and the previous NB IOT practice makes it easier for 5g practitioners to understand the needs of users in the manufacturing industry and quickly implement corresponding solutions for them.

In addition, in addition to the to B market, 5g NB IOT can also bring brand premium to 2C industry and stimulate the publicity and popularization of smart family, personal wear and other scenes.

The International Telecommunication Union has made a resolution to officially approve NB IOT as 5g standard. NB IOT, as the core support standard of 5g mmtc scenario, fully meets the KPI requirements of mmtc scenario and is well deserved to be included in 5g standard. As a core component of 5g, Nb IOT forms a clear evolution path in the 5g unified standard architecture, continuously supports the needs of the industry, and ensures the return on investment of the industry with a long technology life cycle. The ecological construction and industrial application practice of Nb IOT in the past few years have made it a 5g pioneer. In the future, Nb IOT will incorporate and enrich 5g large ecology and 5g industrial application, and accelerate 5g large-scale business. In the context of 5g commercial acceleration this year, Nb IOT has become the official standard of 5g, which will have a far-reaching impact on 5g and the Internet of things industry in the next 10 years.

This article is reproduced from“Internet of things think tank”, support the protection of intellectual property rights. Please indicate the original source and author for reprint. If there is infringement, please contact us to delete