Insights

Yes, several procedures require synchronous connectivity between device and the network core. There is a study item on agenda for R19 on store and forward functionality. This is to mitigate the issue of discontinuous feeder links i.e. ground connectivity for delay tolerant applications.

Yes as a future feature. The roadmap for our 5G NB-IoT waveform is prioritised according to our customer needs.

Yes, ray tracing can be done for different terrain and geographic locations. We can also create specific scenarios or use 3GPP fading models.

In Release 19 there have been proposals for supporting UEs without GNSS, but some companies either do not believe it is feasible to support or that such a use-case is not worthwhile the work involved. So instead, one proposal for Release 19 is to support short GNSS outages. In Release 17 and Release 18 GNSS is assumed in the UEs, but the UEs can in theory be stationary over their lifetime and then be provisioned with their GNSS coordinate.

A broadband solution requires a more costly UE implementation for one, but looking beyond the cost, NB-IoT has the unique feature of very narrowband channels, which enables increasing the power-density of received signals. Being able to increase the power density is important for IoT in terrestrial networks to enable a large coverage area was for power-limited UEs. In NTN the link-budget is challenged by the nature of satcom where the distance is even higher so the importance of this NB-IoT is renewed.

The major difference will be the ability to serve users in unserved and underserved areas based on standard devices they are already using. Until now this has only been possible with proprietary devices and dedicated services.

Yes, currently 3GPP is incorporating NTN services into the standards. Hence devices and network services will eventually support satellite-based services. The long transmission path will mean substantial path loss and transmission delays which must be compensated. For NGSO satellites the doppler effect from the satellites must be compensated. Hence changes are incorporated in the standards to allow NTN communication.