NarrowBand IoT (NB-IoT) is a Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) radio technology standard that has been developed to enable a wide range of devices and services to be connected using cellular telecommunications bands. NB-IoT is a narrowband radio technology designed for the Internet of Things (IoT), and is one of a range of Mobile IoT (MIoT) technologies standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Other 3GPP IoT technologies include eMTC and EC-GSM-IoT. The NB-IoT specification was frozen at Release 13 of the 3GPP specification (LTE-Advanced Pro), in June 2016.
NB-IoT focuses specifically on indoor coverage, low cost, long battery life, and enabling a large number of connected devices. The NB-IoT technology can either be deployed “in-band” in spectrum allocated to Long Term Evolution (LTE)—utilizing resource blocks within a normal LTE carrier, or in the unused resource blocks within a LTE carrier’s guard-band—or “standalone” for deployments in dedicated spectrum. It is also suitable for the re-farming of GSM spectrum.