3GPP standards journey — Rel-13 through Rel-18

Rel-13 — The Cellular IoT Foundation

Rel-13, frozen in March 2016, established cellular IoT as a 3GPP technology. Two complementary specifications were introduced: Cat-M1 (LTE-M) supporting 1.4 megahertz UE bandwidth with 1 megabit-per-second peak rate, full mobility, and VoLTE; and Cat-NB1 (NB-IoT) supporting a single 180 kilohertz carrier with deep coverage extension and ultra-low power consumption. Both targeted 164 decibels maximum coupling loss for deep-indoor and rural reachability. Rel-13 also defined the three NB-IoT deployment modes — in-band, guard-band, and standalone — that allow operators to coexist with LTE or to…