David Lake

Architect – Mobility CTO Group, Cisco

January 2016

Future Wireless for IoT

“The Internet of Things is the next technology transition where devices will allow us to sense and control the physical world by making objects smarter and connecting them through an intelligent network”, Cisco

The first step in the IoT journey is to connect the un-connected with a number of new wireless technologies focused on M2M and IoT

Connecting a new generation of objects/devices poses new challenges: Pervasive connectivity, Power Availability and Low Cost

Which requires a new generation of network to connect the low-powered things: Low Power Wide Area Networks

From connecting the unconnected to connecting the low-powered

SPs current networks cannot scale to IoT numbers

How to connect millions of devices across a cityscape

Connect wireless sensors

Highly constrained devices

Become Knowledge Provider

Revenue Models?

Use Cases?

Data Collection?

Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) is an enabler

Trend: Many SP Are Investigating LPWA

Many sensors are low cost, low power, constrained devices

Battery/solar/scavenger energy

Wireless

Low CPU

Autonomous

Huge scale

Cellular & WiFi Not Suitable For Constrained Devices

New type of network

is required

Low Power Wide Area

(LPWA)

New type of network

is required

Low Power Wide Area

(LPWA)

Examples of Constrained Applications

Fire DetectionCO2 Temp, Humidity, Infrared

Chemical LeakagePH Monitor, Oxygen levels

Urban Air PollutionNO2CO2 Gas Sensors

River LevelsLevel sensor, Ultrasound

Snow DepthUltraSound Sensor

Earthquake WarningAccelerometer

Smart ParkingMagnetic Field Sensor

Street LightingLight Sensors, Relays

P

Current IoT ApproachesTechnology Topology Outdoor Application Long

Range

802.15.4g/

6LoWPAN

Mesh Yes Smartgrid, Metering,

Oil&Gas

No

WirelessHart Mesh Mostly

indoor

Industrial No

Zigbee

ZigbeePro

Mesh Mostly

indoor

Smart Home/Building

Lighting

No

ISA100 Mesh Mostly

indoor

Industrial No

Proprietary

802.15.4

Point-to-

Multipoint

Yes Smart Parking, Traffic No

Enocean Mesh No Building No

StarSense RF Mesh Yes Smart Lighting No

Z-Wave Mesh No Smart Home No

In most cases the

technology is tailored to a

single Area/Use Case and

indoor, with some attempts

to support other use cases.

Hybrid LPWA: low power

wireless short range and

cellular/wire backhaul

Comparing IoT Wireless and LPWATechnology 2G 3G LTE WIFI Zigbee Wireless

Hart

802.15.4g LPWA(Lora/

Sigfox, etc)

Long Range Yes (10s

Kms)

Yes

(10s

Kms)

10s Kms No No No Limited (1.5

Km)

Yes (10s Km)

Tx Current Consumption

(3V)

200-500mA 500-

1000mA

600-1100

mA

19-400

mA

34mA 28mA ~ 35mA 20-70ma

Topology P2P P2P P2P

P2P/MES

H

MESH MESH MESH P2P

Standby Current

Consumption (3V)

2.3mA 3.5mA 5.5mA 1.1 mA 0.003mA 0.008mA ~.005mA 0.005

Energy Harvesting No No No No Possible Possible Possible Possible

Operating Life on battery

(2000mAh)

4-8 hours

(com) 36

days (idle)

2-4

hours

(com)

20 days

(idle)

2-3 Hours

(com)

12 days

(idle)

4-8

hours(co

m) 50

hours

(idle)

60 hours

(com)

8-10 years (idle) Variable 10-20 Years

Module Cost $12 $35-$50 $40-$80 $5-$8 $6-$12 NC $3 $2-$5

Licensed Spectrum

Costs

Yes Yes Yes No No No No No

What is a LWPA Network?

Low Data Throughput: low bandwidth, small packets

~200 Bytes per day, 100 bit/s-100 kbit/s instantaneous

small packets (12 to 255 Bytes), mostly uplink traffic

Low Power: several years on battery

Long Range: 0-5 kms (dense urban), 10-65 kms open area

A number of technologies are

LoRa, SIGFOX, Weightless(-W, -N, -P), ONRAMP, etc.

Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWA)

What is LPWA ?

Characteristic Order of magnitude Typical value

Spectrum Unlicensed <1GHz, 2.4 GHz

Range Long 10’s km (no relay)

Objects Many Many thousands

Data volume Small Up 10’s kB per day

Data rate Low Up to100kit/s

Latency Low to high Up to minutes

Battery life Long Up to 20 years

Module cost Low <$5

Service cost Low <$10 per year

Technology LoRaWAN Sigfox Weightless-N ONRAMP/Ingenu LTE-M

Frequency Sub-GHz ISM Sub-GHz ISM Sub-GHz ISM 2.4 GHz LTE band

RF PHY CSS and FSK UNB UNB DSSS LTE

True Bi-Directional Yes No No Yes Yes

BW 300 bit/s-50kbit/s 100 bit/s (EU)

600 bit/s (US)

100 bit/s 1 Mbit/s

Tx Current Low Low Low Low High

Rx Current Low Low Low Low Moderate

Interference

immunity

Good Bad Bad Good Moderate

Mobile/Nomadic Yes/Yes No/Yes No/Yes No/Yes No/Yes

Module Cost Low Low Low Low ?

Maturity Yes Yes No No No

LPWA Comparison

Well, yes, but…..

Cat 1: available today, but still at ~10Mbit/s

UE Battery life ?

Cat 0: still some months away… Still ~1Mbit/s

Full LTE-M: Probably 2017 at the earliest; “kbit/s”

Open questions:

Is LTE-M too much, too late ? LPWA is already here

Can we reduce the EPC cost-basis to match ?

C-IoT ?

But isn’t LTE-M for IoT?

LTE-M Timescales

Rel-13 freeze date of March, 2016 product availability late 2017 to early 2018.

3GPP Release Stage 3 Freeze Date

Rel-8 March, 2009

Rel-9 March, 2010

Rel-10 June, 2011

Rel-11 March, 2013

Rel-12 March, 2015

Rel-13 March, 2016 (target)

Rel-14 June, 2017 (guestimate)

To achieve Long Range and Low Power there are two main approaches:

• Ultra Narrow Band: Slowly transmit small amount of data in narrowband channels (kHz) using various SK modulation (GFSK, BPSK, etc.)

• Spread Spectrum: a small amount is spread across a large radio spectrum. Data can be extracted from noise by the receiver. Direct-Sequence SS (DSSS) and Frequency-Hoping SS (FHSS) use pseudo-random elements. Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) uses wideband linear frequency modulated chirp pulses to encode information. CSS is being used in IEEE 802.15.4a Wireless-PAN

• LPWA technologies are mainly using these two approaches

Which PHY RF Layer for LPWA

• One size does not fit all (at least, not yet)

• We will (already) have:ti

• Multiple RATs

• Multiple domains

• Diverse identity/security models

• Multiple transport protocols

• Multiple data presentation models

• We will (may) not have:

• SIM

• $200/device ARPU…(c.f. SIGFOX MUCH lower!)

How do we move towards an Architecture?

Public/Private WAN

Network (wireless/wired)

Public/Private WAN

Network (wireless/wired)

Network

Server/Controllers

Cloud

Network

Cloud

Network

Secure

Aggregation

Network

ManagementData

Modell/Virtuallizati

on

Device/Sensor

Applications

LPWA Application Provider

AAA

LPWA Application Provider

AAAApplicationsHosted Applications

Device

Mngt

Location

Services

Future Architecture

LPWALPWA 802.15.4

Mesh

802.15.4

MeshWIFIWIFI

Device/Sensor Device/Sensor

Local

Sensor

Network

Local

Sensor

Network

Device/Sensor

ZTD

Management

Fog/Applicatio

n Management

CellularCellular

Device/Sensor

Doesn’t this start to look like 5G ?

• IoT is NOT one solution, but a kaleidoscope of use-cases

• Many of the “IoT” solutions in place today are vertically-integrated solutions with for-purpose network infrastructure

• The power of IoT is in making use of and sharing data between these solutions

• This will require commonality of infrastructure at some point

• That point probably ISN’T at the network layer....

• The role of the today's SPs is evolving

Conclusions