The development of the cellular Internet of Things is actually affected by the development of mobile communication networks. In the next few years, the cellular Internet of Things will switch from 2G connections to NB-IoT+4G connections, but the switching process will not happen overnight, and smooth migration needs to be achieved through the iterative product iteration of NB-IoT and LTE Cat.1. According to Counterpoint data, most of the existing and newly added cellular IoT connections before 2020 will come from 2G IoT, and by 2025, the number of 2G/3G IoT connections will be almost negligible. In other words: the migration of 2G Internet of Things to NB-IoT+4G+5G may be completed within five years.

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NB-IoT+4G+5G+2G+3G Evolution of the IoT
The development of the cellular Internet of Things is actually affected by the development of
mobile communication networks.
In the next few years, the cellular Internet of Things will switch from 2G connections to
NB-IoT+4G connections, but the switching process will not happen overnight, and smooth
migration needs to be achieved through the iterative product iteration of NB-IoT and LTE Cat.1.
According to Counterpoint data, most of the existing and newly added cellular IoT connections
before 2020 will come from 2G IoT, and by 2025, the number of 2G/3G IoT connections will be
almost negligible.
In other words: the migration of 2G Internet of Things to NB-IoT+4G+5G may be completed
within five years.
1. The future route is clear: NB-IoT+4G+5G coordinated development
On May 7, 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on
Promoting the Comprehensive Development of Mobile Internet of Things."
The notice pointed out: Promote the migration and transformation of 2G/3G Internet of Things
services and establish a comprehensive mobile Internet of Things ecosystem for the coordinated
development of NB-IoT (Narrowband Internet of Things), 4G (including LTE-Cat1, that is, 4G
networks of rate category 1) and 5G.
On the basis of deepening 4G network coverage and accelerating 5G network construction,
NB-IoT is used to meet the needs of most low-rate scenarios, LTE-Cat1 (Cat1 for short) to meet
medium-rate IoT and voice requirements, and 5G technology to meet higher High-speed,

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low-latency networking requirements.
By the end of 2020, the NB-IoT network will achieve universal coverage in the main urban areas
of cities above the county level and deep coverage in key areas; the number of mobile IoT
connections will reach 1.2 billion; promote the convergence of NB-IoT module prices with 2G
modules, and guide the addition of the Internet of Things Terminals migrate to NB-IoT and Cat1;
create a batch of NB-IoT application benchmark projects and NB-IoT million-level connection
scale application scenarios.
In other words, the current domestic development plan for the cellular Internet of Things is very
clear:
NB-IoT is aimed at low speed, Cat.1 is aimed at low and medium speed + voice, and 5G is aimed
at high speed + low latency + high reliability.
In the market distribution of cellular connections, high-speed connections account for 10%,
medium-speed connections account for 30%, and low-speed narrowband connections account
for 60%.
Previously, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has announced that 3GPP 5G
technology (including NB-IoT) has been officially accepted as the ITU IMT-2020 5G technical
standard.
At the same time, in the just-frozen R16 version, 3GPP has integrated NB-IoT as a 5G technology
into the overall evolution of the standard. For example, NB-IoT can coexist and deploy with the
NR spectrum, and NB-IoT R16 terminals can access the 5G core network.
In other words, NB-IoT will occupy the largest proportion in the IoT system in the future.
As of April this year, 71 countries around the world have invested in the construction of 129
mobile Internet of Things, including 93 NB-IoT networks.
Huawei predicts that by 2025, NB-IoT chip shipments will reach 350 million, accounting for nearly
50% of the entire cellular IoT chip shipments.
2. Homework to be solved in front of NB-IoT
Although NB-IoT will occupy a large proportion in the future Internet of Things system, and the
number of domestic NB-IoT connections exceeded 100 million in February this year, this also
marks that the NB-IoT industry has passed a historical turning point and entered a stage of
explosive growth.
However, it was pointed out at the China Mobile Cat.1 online seminar held yesterday: The peak
of 2G IoT shipments will pass, and end-users need to move smoothly. Although the shipment of
2G GSM modules has entered a downward trend, the inventory and annual shipments are still
huge.
Therefore, there are still many homework to be solved before NB-IoT:
First, most of my country's NB-IoT connections are concentrated in a few cities, and there is still a
lack of universality across the country. A large number of base stations are under light load and
no load.
Second, compared with advanced technologies such as NB-IoT, 4G, and 5G, the general utilization
efficiency of 2G and 3G technologies is lower. However, 2G and 3G connections still account for a

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large share of the existing Internet of Things connections, and are The proportion of IoT
connections is also close to 20%, and it is necessary to accelerate the formation of a development
pattern that uses NB-IoT, 4G, and 5G technologies to undertake various IoT connections.
Third, NB-IoT network coverage needs to be further improved. The NB-IoT network coverage
level in some areas cannot fully meet the requirements of carrying 2G connection migration, but
the local coverage depth needs to be strengthened.
3. The three major operators grasp NB-IoT with one hand and add Cat.1 with the other
At present, China Telecom's NB-IoT market share exceeds 50%, ranking first in the industry. The
scale of NB-IoT connections is nearly 60 million, and NB-IoT terminal devices are connected to
China Telecom's Internet of Things open platform nearly 30 million. In the future, efforts will be
made to deploy the NB-IoT R14 version to enhance the application experience of big data packets
and high-speed mobile.
It is understood that China Telecom has already carried out NB-IoT R14 version service tests in 5
provinces and 18 cities, and it will be promoted on a larger scale in the future.
Beginning in October 2018, China Mobile officially began to develop the NB-IoT business. As of
the end of February this year, the number of users exceeded 43 million.
Moreover, China Mobile has reached a mature business development point, covering 346 cities
across the country. The business has the ability to open cards at one point and use the entire
network. At the same time, there are hundreds of thousands of sites. FDD transformation has
been completed in the 900M frequency band. The realization of software activation will be able
to support the rapid response capabilities of on-demand network construction this year and in
the future, and provide a very good infrastructure for the subsequent development of NB-IoT.
Unlike the actual situation of telecommunications and mobile, since China Unicom's 900MHz
spectrum resource bandwidth is the only 6MHz, 80% of NB-IoT base stations are deployed in the
1800MHz frequency band.
However, the coverage of the 1800MHz frequency band is much smaller than that of telecom's
800MHz and mobile's 900MHz, so it is more difficult to develop. The 2019 China Unicom financial
report shows that a total of 200,000 NB-IoT base stations have been opened.
At the same time, the three major operators have also begun to increase Cat.1.
Among them, China Telecom is the most active. As early as 2016, it deployed LTE Cat.1 ecology in
advance, launched LTE Cat.1 DTU, and resolved the end-to-end overall solution of realised &
terminal + channel + platform with the help of a unified cloud platform developed by itself. The
solution has been successfully implemented in various scenarios across the country.
China Mobile launched its own brand Cat.1 module OneMO ML302 and integrated its own core
products and services such as OneNET platform, OneOS operating system, and Internet of Things
security to create an integrated operation and maintenance service system based on Cat.1
technology.