Experimental Performance Evaluation of NB-IOT Deployment Modes in Urban Area

Abstract

Narrow-band Internet of Things is a new promising radio technology standard that addresses the requirements of the IoT. The technology provides improved indoor coverage, support of massive number of low data rate devices, low delay sensitivity, ultra-low device cost, low device power consumption and optimized network architecture. The technology can be deployed in three different operational modes: (1) in-band, (2) guard-band, or (3) standalone in dedicated spectrum. The choice of NB-IoT deployment scenario has a significant impact on the quality and performance of the network.In this article, presented the results of an experimental study of the performance of all three scenarios for NB-IoT deploying in a real working cellular network under equal operating conditions for consideration. The following parameters chosen as an assessment measure: radio coverage, network capacity and user experience. The research shown that exact the standalone mode provide the best performance for these parameters. In addition, we have confirmed that all three NB-IoT scenarios coexist perfectly on 2G/4G networks and satisfy the original requirements of 3GPP's in deep coverage and robust quality of network service.