Cellular IoT

CAT 1

Cat 1 is a cellular communication standard intended to service IoT applications. It utilizes existing LTE networks. Low power demand (Cat M1 is much lower).

Modern IoT Cellular Standards
Standard	Max UL/DL Speed	Comments
LTE Cat 1	5 Mbps upload 10 Mbps download	Two antennas required
LTE Cat 1bis	5 Mbps upload 10 Mbps download (same as LTE Cat 1 except for # antennas)	One antenna required
LTE-M	~1.1 Mbps	Intended for low power networks (LPWANs).
NB-IoT	~160 kbps	Intended for low power networks (LPWANs).

Category M1

Category M1 wireless (also called 'Cat M1', 'LTE CAT-M1', and 'LTE-M') is a low power wide area network (LPWAN) cellular technology. Cat M1 was designed specifically for IoT devices, with an average upload speed of 200 kbps, upload speed of 1 Mbps, and 10 to 15 ms latency. The 200 kbps rate is low relative to current common cellular technology, but adequate for sending small data packets infrequently over cellular. The low power of Cat 1 LTE and low cost is extremely attractive for IoT projects. Cat-M1 is compatible with the LTD network (Verizon, AT&T, ..). In the US, both Verizon and AT&T offer Cat M1 pricing and service models.

The Particle Tracker One and Boron LTE CAT-M1 (Boron to be discontinued 30 June 2022 due to global silicon shortage, substitute is the B404X) is based on LTE M1 (for North America). With cellular off and in sleep mode, Tracker One uses 0.164 mA with timed wake. With Tracker One cellular connected but idle, 60.2 mA, and when connected and transmitting 173 mA.

NB-IoT

Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT). NB-IoT is another LPWAN technology that operates on an even narrower bandwidth ( 180 kHz) than Cat M1 (1.4 MHz). Average upload speeds are only 26 kbps. It is for stationary IoT applications because it cannot handle cell tower handoffs.

Cellular Ethernet Modems

Cellular Cat 1 or Cat M1 modems with Ethernet port.

Thales (Gemalto) ELS61T-US-LAN 4G LTE Cat 1 Single Mode Modem $233 from Embedded Works

USR® Courier® M2M 4G LTE Cat 1 Cellular Gateway $233 from Embedded Works

InHand InRouter901L Embedded 4G LTE CAT 1 Router Module for Verizon Wireless $373 from Westward Sales

2022 Cellular IoT

The chip shortage, 2G & 3G shutdown, and the emergence of low power data only IoT cellular options (CAT 1, Category M1, and NB-IoT) has created a near term interesting cellular IoT situation Below are cellular or satellite enabled boards that run Arduino or C/C++ programming language, and they utilize the new CAT 1, Category M1, and NB-IoT cellular options (if cellular).

Notecard LTE Cat-M from blueswireless. Notecard is a device-to-cloud data pump that can be used with any microcontroller to send and receive data over a LTE-M cellular network. The microcontroller communicates with the Notecard using Serial or I2C (Arduino, Python, C, .. libraries provided). Notecard power consumption in idle is 8 uA. Cellular data is transmitted and received through the Notehub cloud service, with outbound/inbound JSON data connected to your cloud service of choice. 10 years and 500 mb of cellular data is included with the purchase of Notecard (no cellular subscriptions, SIM fees, etc.). Notecard must be connected to a Notecarrier. A Notecarrier-F in the FeatherWing format is available. A Notecard, Notecarrier-F FeatherWing, and a Feather (microcontroller) such as the M4 Express would cost a total of only $97 USD.

Qwiic Cellular Notecarrier - Blues Wireless NB-IoT & LTE-M M.2. I2C communication with module supported. See also the bare module.

SparkFun LTE CAT M1/NB-IoT Shield - SARA-R4 Cat M1 (Category M1) and NB-IoT (Narrowband IoT) cellular networks. Arduino Uno R3 footprint.