NB-IoT and LTE-M towards massive MTC: Complete performance evaluation for 5G mMTC

Abstract

Since the emerging 5G wireless network is expected to significantly revolutionize thefield of communication, its standardization and design should regard the internet ofthings (IoT) among the main orientations. Also, emerging IoT applications introducenew requirements other than throughput to support massive machine-type commu-nication (mMTC) where small data packets are occasionally sent. Therefore, moreimportance is attached to coverage, latency, power consumption, and connection den-sity. For this purpose, the third generation partnership project (3GPP) has introducedtwo novel cellular IoT technologies supporting mMTC, known as NB-IoT and LTE-M. This paper aims to determine the system configuration and deployment required forNB-IoT and LTE-M technologies to fully meet the 5G mMTC requirements in termsof coverage, throughput, latency, battery life, and connection density. An overview ofthese technologies and their design principles is also described. A complete evalua-tion of NB-IoT and LTE-M performance against 5G mMTC requirements is presented,and it is shown that these requirements can be met but only under certain conditionsregarding system configuration and deployment. This is followed by a performancecomparative analysis, which is mainly conducted to determine the limits and suitableuse cases of each technology.