Pioneers in NB-IoT testing

What do you really need to know?

The most important facts and solutions.

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 Contents
❙❙ IoT and NB-IoT market and use cases
❙❙ IoT technologies and terminology
❙❙ NB-IoT network testing solutions from a single source
–– NB-IoT testing using network scanners
–– NB-IoT testing using cellular IoT devices
–– NB-IoT network optimization and troubleshooting
–– A real-world experience in connecting a cellular
NB-IoT device to a network
–– NB-IoT base station deployment verification

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 Is IoT really a significant market
for cellular technologies?
A wide variety of analysts are forecasting the IoT market in terms of volume (in
billions or trillions of dollars) and in terms of connected IoT devices. The figures
differ significantly, but there is broad agreement in the industry that the market
will grow substantially. The Ericsson Mobility Report is on the conservative side of
the forecasts.
Forecast of connected IoT devices
It is true that the vast majority of connected IoT devices will use short-range tech-
nologies. However, 500 million connected cellular wide area network devices

2023 already deployed in 2017 with forecasted growth to 1.8 billion devices in 2023
sends a strong message: the cellular IoT market is already there and will undoubt-
edly grow significantly.
2017 Cellular wide area network technologies, in particular for security and mission
critical use cases and applications, require very high network reliability and avail-
ability where proper device testing and also network testing is a must to always

20
ensure the essential quality of service.

7
billion
billion

2017 2023 CAGR

Short-range 17.4 Bn +18 %
Presently, the dominant technology in the wide area network segment
6.4 Bn
is GSM/GPRS. However, by 2023, IoT cellular connectivity will mainly be
Cellular WAN 0.5 Bn 1.8 Bn +24 %
provided by LTE and 5G.
Unlicensed WAN 0.1 Bn 0.6 Bn +35 %

Source: Ericsson Mobility Report, Nov. 2017

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 Examples of NB-IoT use cases
Use cases for the Internet of Things (IoT) are virtually unlimited and nobody can
presume to know the most successful ones in the future. Here are a few examples
and the main benefits.


Smart parking
Main benefits:
Smart waste management ❙ Improve accessibility of parking space
Main benefits: ❙ Less (search) traffic congestion (fuel, emission, time
❙ Report the bin’s fullness to ensure timely removal saving)
❙ Cost savings (waste removal only when needed, Smart metering ❙ Optimize existing infrastructure
improved routing) Main benefits: ❙ Cost savings (easy payment)
❙ Monitor activities of cleaning services ❙ Cost savings (OPEX)
❙ End-user friendly

2
❙ Improved supply efficiency through accurate usage
records
❙ Maintenance (fault detection alerts)

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 A plethora of radio The cellular IoT technologies (NB-IoT and LTE-M) are just some of the wide area
network IoT technologies among many other wide area, neighbor area, local area
and body area network technologies, but they have strong advantages in terms

technologies for the of ecosystem (technology components for devices and in particular base stations)
compared to proprietary technologies that rely on a single or a few companies.

wireless Internet of Things However, the assumption is that we will see different technologies employed for
different IoT use cases and applications that will make use of licensed spectrum
(e.g. for cellular 3GPP technologies) and unlicensed, shared spectrum.

IoT will strongly continue with 5G Again to emphasize: use cases for the Internet of Things (IoT) are virtually unlim-
ited and nobody can presume to know the most successful ones or what will be
used commercially in future.
(also standardized by 3GPP) Rohde & Schwarz is focusing on cellular wide area network technologies like
NB-IoT and LTE-M because here network measurements in terms of RF coverage
and sustainable IoT service performance are valuable and highly recommended to
ensure a certain guaranteed QoS.

Technologies versus deployment areas Cellular IoT – we are just at the beginning of an exciting journey
ZigBee/Thread 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax
WI-SUN(HAN) Bluetooth LE Bluetooth 5
Z-Wave ANT/ANT+ ULE Rel. 13 Rel. 14 Rel. 15 Rel. 16 Rel. 17
enocean ZigBee (HAN)
NB-IoT FeMTC eFeMTC
Endiio NFC wHart WI-SUN (FAN) Cat-M1, eDRX, CE Cat-M2
LoRaWAN ISA100 Wireless M-Bus 1.4 MHz/half-duplex 1.4/5 MHz 1.4/5 MHz
802.11 ah GPRS/EC-GSM
5G mMTC
Sigfox IQRF Dash7
NB-IoT eNB-IoT FeNB-IoT
Weightless 802.11 af body 802.16s LTE-M Cat-NB1, eDRX, CE Cat-NB2 (TDD support)
Ingenu NB-IoT 200 kHz 200 kHz 200 kHz 5G NR-IoT
Telensa 5G (uRLLC, mMTC)
WAVIoT
V2x
LTE-sidelink
eV2x
5G uRLLC
local area

MulteFire 1.0 MulteFire 1.1

neighbor area
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

wide area networks

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 Many ways to say the NB-IoT: narrowband Internet of Things
❙❙ NB-IoT = NB-LTE
❙❙ Cat-NB1/Cat-NB2: UE categories for NB-IoT

same thing eMTC: enhanced machine type communications

❙❙ eMTC = LTE-M = LTE-MTC
❙❙ Cat-M1/Cat-M2: UE categories for LTE-M

Main features to limit power consumption

❙❙ PSM: power saving mode
❙❙ eDRX: extended discontinuous reception
(both allow a sleep mode for NB-IoT devices)

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 NB-IoT technology-to-go NB-IoT offers a very easy deployment scenario for operators. With just a software
upgrade, NB-IoT functionality can be added to LTE base stations, but the broad-
cast channel, synchronization signals and reference signals have to be tailored
to the NB-IoT “carrier” bandwidth (180 kHz = 1 LTE PRB). For NB-IoT, the 3GPP
standard requires more than 20 dB higher maximum coupling loss (164 dB) than
normal LTE (142.7 dB) which means more than 20 dB better coverage than LTE.

Suitable features to ensure this better coverage

Reduced occupied channel bandwidth in UL
With single tones, the energy can be concentrated to only 2 % of the LTE PRB
bandwidth of 180 kHz.

In-band operation Reduced occupied channel bandwidth in UL

In-band operation: Uplink multitone and downlink resource units (LTE)
One or more LTE PRBs will be
…
Single tones (control)
replaced by NB-IoT carriers.
Nb-IoT

Nb-IoT

180 kHz
Multitones

Single tones
LTE carrier
0 ms 5 ms 10 ms 15 ms 30 ms

Guard-band operation
Power boosting in DL
Guard-band operation:
NB-IoT carrier transmits with e.g. 6 dB more power than the LTE PRBs
NB-IoT carriers can be placed in
… (in-band operation mode).
Nb-IoT

the slopes of an LTE carrier.

Power boosting in DL

Power
LTE carrier

NB-IoT
Standalone operation
Standalone operation:
NB-IoT carriers can replace

… GSM carriers Frequency

Nb-IoT

(200 kHz bandwidth).
Repetition of messages
Two times the repetitions = 3 dB better coverage!
e.g. GSM carriers High number of repetitions increases network coverage significantly, but also the
latency. However, latency is often not critical for NB-IoT use cases.

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 All NB-IoT network testing
solutions from a single
source
Rohde & Schwarz mobile network testing offers data collection using
network scanners for NB-IoT measurements as well as using cellular
NB-IoT devices connected to the R&S®ROMES4 analysis and network
optimization software that is already known on the market for optimizing
networks of all kind of technologies, including recent technologies like
LTE.
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The complete Rohde & Schwarz network scanner family is NB-IoT capable via
simple software upgrade. A variety of NB-IoT chipsets and module vendors are
also supported. Both measurement solutions focus on different test scopes and
complement each other.
The scanner measurements provide accurate and fast NB-IoT network DL cover-
age due to the scanners’ RF accuracy and information about the coexistence of
NB-IoT with e.g. LTE or other technologies. Measurements using NB-IoT and LTE-
M devices connected to R&S®ROMES4 provide insights into the service perfor-
mance – in particular application layer KPIs, network performance metrics and UL
information.
In the use case section, we have seen that IoT applications often have to work
under extremely demanding receive conditions (e.g. smart meters in basements)
and that IoT networks must be optimized for highest availability. Consequently,
operators planning and deploying new NB-IoT networks inevitably face the cover-
age challenge.
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 The most accurate and reliable means of identifying network coverage is a net-
work scanner. The radio receiver is a passive device that captures the measure-
ment data directly from the RF air interface. Instead of limiting measurements to
NB-IoT network scanners
one particular operator’s cell via a serving cell selection procedure, the passive
scanner-based approach enables the capture of data from all operators and all
available cells within the receiver sensitivity of the scanner.
for accuracy and true
Significant parameters include power levels (e.g. NRSRP) and signal-to-noise ra-
tios of the different signals in the NB-IoT radio frame. Those parameters allow
coverage information
conclusions to be drawn about the RF conditions at a certain location, which pro-
vide the basis for network access through NB-IoT devices. Portable NB-IoT network measurement solution that consists of an
R&S®TSMA scanner, including network PC, R&S®ROMES4 software
running on this network PC, RF and GPS antenna, battery and tablet to
control the measurements.

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 What can be tested by connecting a
cellular NB-IoT device to R&S®ROMES4?
Once the NB-IoT device is connected to a network, the following service perfor-
mance measurements can be done:
❙❙ Application layer KPIs such as success rate, setup time, transfer time, user data
rate and latency
❙❙ Network performance metrics such as spectral efficiency, latency, energy
efficiency, resource utilization and coverage (DL and UL)
The R&S®ROMES4 software tool also analyzes data from connected NB-IoT devic-
es. It provides deep insight into the communications between the NB-IoT network
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and the device with the NPA functionality (problem spot analysis for scanner and
UE) since the above-mentioned measurements can only be done in case of an es-
tablished connection between the NB-IoT network and the NB-IoT device.
A higher CE level means a higher number of message repetitions for better cover-
age and certainly much higher energy consumption.
All these parameters decoded by the NB-IoT UE are available as signals and can
be configured as graphs in R&S®ROMES4.
NB-IoT transmission details: info per TTI from the PRACH, PDSCH, NPUSCH and
NPDCCH DCI. Service performance measured with NB-IoT devices connected to
R&S®ROMES4.
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 Example: RACH coverage enhancement (CE) levels
Cat-NB UE selects a coverage enhancement (CE) level for the RACH procedure
based on comparing current NRSRP with RSRP thresholds signaled in SIB2-NB.
We decoded in a live network e.g.
❙❙ RSRP 1 threshold (CE 1) of 31: < –109 dBm (calculation is –140 dBm + 31 dB)
❙❙ RSRP 2 threshold (CE 2) of 21: < –119 dBm
The CE level also depends on other eNB NPRACH parameters such as
❙❙ The maximum number of preamble transmission attempts per enhanced
coverage level supported in the serving cell.
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In the live network, this parameter was set to 4, i.e. after 4 transmitted preambles
without a received “response” message, the NB-IoT UE will step up the CE level.
In this example, 9 transmissions were sufficient to set the UE from CE level 0 to
CE level 2, although the receive signal level (NRSRP) is more than 30 dB better
than the –119 dBm RSRP 2 threshold.
2D chart configured with NRSRP, NRSRQ, CE level, NB efficiency
(in µWs/bit).
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 NB-IoT network optimization
and troubleshooting
Deepest insights can be achieved by collecting data with NB-IoT devices,
NB-IoT and LTE scanners in parallel. This particularly helps to identify
and solve potential interference issues (troubleshooting) and optimize the
NB-IoT network.
Since introducing the NB-IoT network measurement capability with scanners and
NB-IoT devices supported by our leading engineering tool R&S®ROMES4, a myr-
iad of kilometers of drive tests have been executed. We have received valuable
feedback from NB-IoT field engineers and found interesting use cases for compre-
hensive testing with NB-IoT devices and scanners together.
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If just the information from the NB-IoT device is visualized in our R&S®ROMES4
software platform, we only know that the device cannot access the network even
though the coverage should be definitely sufficient.
If we add the NB-IoT and LTE scanner measurements that have been collected in
parallel to the NB-IoT device, we clearly see the root cause of the problem.
The NB-IoT scanner confirms the RF data (NRSRP and NRS CINR) of the NB-IoT
device for the cell with NPCI 200 (see below). The NB-IoT scanner also shows
–10 dB CINR.
The LTE scanner provides the answer: The cell with PCI 200 is only the fourth best
LTE cell in this area (in this situation, it is the worst LTE cell). There are three LTE
cells in this area that can be detected with up to 20 dB better received power. Ex-
actly these three cells provide a strong interference to LTE cell 200 and certainly
also to the NB-IoT carrier that is part of cell 200.
This example shows an aborted random access procedure (11 request messages with max. TX power at
the end) even though the NRSRP reports very good coverage with –74 dBm (see picture below).
The SINR with –7 dB already indicates that there is an issue..
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 “Our NB-IoT device stated a good
coverage level but could not register to
the network. Using the NB-IoT scanner
in combination with an LTE scanner
explained the situation immediately.
We always use the scanners in our daily
optimization and engineering work.”
Head of Radio Network Optimization, Tier-one MNO Europe.

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 A real-world experience in
connecting a cellular NB-IoT
device to a network
A large number of NB-IoT modules and chipsets with different RF
characteristics are already available on the market (and many more will
follow). Consequently, our test solution supports a variety of different
vendors’ NB-IoT/LTE-M chipsets and modules.
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In order to attach to an NB-IoT network, the Cat-NB1 UE must support the net-
work’s frequencies – a somewhat tricky endeavor since the International Tele-
communication Union (ITU) officially divided the world into three radio regula-
tory regions in which each region has its own set of band allocations. However,
the 3GPP has already specified many frequency bands for NB-IoT, mostly below
1 GHz.
NB-IoT technology is optimized for small data transfers and minimal load over the
radio interface. 3GPP standardized both IP and non-IP data delivery mechanisms,
using either control plane or user plane signaling messages. During the attach
procedure, the used connection type is controlled by the Cat-NB1 UE. The access
point name (APN) is the name of a setting belonging to the subscriber profile that
is used to manage the characteristics of the connection between an operator’s
network and an external network. For example, for IP and non-IP connections, dif-
ferent APNs are used.
Consequently, in this early phase of deployments, operators offer NB-IoT pack-
ages with a specific predefined NB-IoT subscriber profile that contains default
APNs and data transport types that are implemented in dedicated SIM cards. This
enables setting up the preferred connection between the UE and the NB-IoT op-
erator’s network. Concerning the IP data, our field studies showed that the default
APN normally connects to the public Internet, which is what we are used to when
testing networks with commercially available smartphones.
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 NB-IoT base station During deployment phase, it is important to verify NB-IoT signal transmission as
defined in 3GPP. The R&S®FSH supports NB-IoT downlink over-the-air signal mea-
surement. Since the basic intent of NB-IoT is to have a reliable connection, mea-

deployment verification suring the transmitted signal quality is essential.

The spectrum overview shows in-band, guard-band and standalone NB-IoT carrier
and DL power boosting. The R&S®FSH depicts the signal quality in an alphanu-
Measure NB-IoT signal quality with the meric view and graphically in a constellation diagram (here the QPSK modulation
R&S®FSH handheld spectrum analyzer scheme).

Alphanumeric view of decoded

signals and signal quality.

NB-IoT constellation diagram.

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 Rohde & Schwarz
The Rohde & Schwarz electronics group offers innovative
solutions in the following business fields: test and mea-
surement, broadcast and media, secure communications,
cybersecurity, monitoring and network testing. Founded
more than 80 years ago, the independent company which
is headquartered in Munich, Germany, has an extensive
sales and service network with locations in more than
70 countries.

www.rohde-schwarz.com

Mobile network testing

The company’s broad and diverse product portfolio for
mobile network testing addresses every test scenario in
the network lifecycle – from base station installation to
network acceptance and network benchmarking, from op-
timization and troubleshooting to interference hunting and
spectrum analysis, from IP application awareness to QoS
and QoE of voice, data, video and app-based services.

www.rohde-schwarz.com/MNT-NB-IoT

Regional contact
❙❙ Europe, Africa, Middle East | +49 89 4129 12345
customersupport@rohde-schwarz.com
❙❙ North America | 1 888 TEST RSA (1 888 837 87 72)
customer.support@rsa.rohde-schwarz.com
❙❙ Latin America | +1 410 910 79 88
customersupport.la@rohde-schwarz.com
www.rohde-schwarz.com/mnt-nb-iot ❙❙ Asia Pacific | +65 65 13 04 88
customersupport.asia@rohde-schwarz.com
Meet the experts. Visit the blog. ❙❙ China | +86 800 810 82 28 | +86 400 650 58 96
customersupport.china@rohde-schwarz.com

R&S® is a registered trademark of Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG

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Data without tolerance limits is not binding | Subject to change
© 2018 Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG | 81671 Munich, Germany

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