LTE (4G) and WCDMA (3G) are challenging standards for consumer market. These standards are primarily to support cell-phone applications, however, LTE has been penetrating into other applications such as IoT and machine-to-machine (M2M). Although LTE is usually marketed for its high speed (which usually is not important for IoT applications), however, the following attributes of LTE makes it a great candidate for M2 M applications:
- Spectral efficiency
- The possibility to quickly setup the communication channel, send some packeted data, and release the channel
- Longevity of products due to long support by the operators
- Support of various usage model
The key for enabling LTE for low-power applications such as IoT is to develop low cost and ultra low power LTE solutions. As the transceiver (TRX) has a large contribution in the total system cost and power consumption, an ultra-low-power LTE TRX specially developed and optimized for IoT application will enable the market.