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We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

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Re: We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

#41

Post by ctz »

MrQuincle wrote: post #38
jsjohnst wrote: post #32

I’ve done a lot of prototyping with LTE, GPRS, LTE-M, and NB-LTE chipsets (along with having previously worked for a Bluetooth tracker company) and I think this article is making a false conclusion. The terrible battery life of these example products is much more caused by the power devouring GPS or a lack of adequate battery capacity in these products than by the LTE-M chipset.

If you think so, you've to state what the power use was of the chipsets you've used. For example the well-known nRF51: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/1657/how-to-mini... . It can be as low as 20 uA. Between advertisements 4 uA.

Er, what relevance does BLE power consumption have to LTE-M, NBIOT, etc.?

Re: We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

#42

Post by tjoff »

chrisfinazzo wrote: post #17

Let's be honest, LTE was always oversold in terms of its technical limitations. The first reference to it that I can recall seeing (years ago) actually was describing LTE Advanced (~150 Mb/s), but conveniently left out that information. I know that it had been shown in testing to reach 200 Mb/s - call me when real world usage data can show that kind of result. In reality, the kind of progress that @barbegal mentions…

LTE is awesome. The latency alone makes is huge and can not be overstated, it truly is a game changer.

These numbers typically don't reflect a single client, and it would be foolish to present those numbers. Real world numbers for LTE are an order of magnitude better than anything previously. It often is better than a good wifi connection, I just don't see the point in using wifi anymore.

Re: We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

#43

Post by Uberphallus »

diamondo25 wrote: post #2

We at Hiber [0] are working on an actual low-power solution, which will give the device a way to transmit once a day to a sattelite with a custom 144 bytes user payload. The device location is already encoded, so you can focus on filling those 144 bytes with anything you'd like. You'll have global coverage and a central system to extract the data. [0] https://hiber.global/

Hi, had a look at your tech, quite interesting, but saw no open positions, do you see any opening in the short-medium term?

Re: We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

#44

Post by KaiserPro »

diamondo25 wrote: post #35
KaiserPro wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with respect, iridium is not low power. even the small "IoT" modem https://www.iridium.com/products/iridium-core-9523/ requires 2.5 watts peak. even once a day, you're lucky to get a months worth of reports from anything less than 10whr battery. Especially if you are in an urban/sky contrained environment.

We are not running on Iridium, but our own satellites and frequencies.

sorry yes, I should have read this first:

https://support.hiber.global/hc/en-us/article_attachments/36...

transmit is on average 4.1 watts. I get that for satellites that's pretty low power, but that's still in the order of 30dbm (assuming losses). compare that to the peak of 23dbm for LTE-m or 14dbm for lora.

Now the OP author doesn't seem to grasp that the reason bluetooth le can last so long/update so much is because its got a limited range. Hiber at a minimum has to reach 600km, more when the satellite is not directly above. LTE-M only has to reach a few KM at best, lora has tiny packets with low duty cycle.

Re: We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

#45

Post by KaiserPro »

chrisfinazzo wrote: post #17

Let's be honest, LTE was always oversold in terms of its technical limitations. The first reference to it that I can recall seeing (years ago) actually was describing LTE Advanced (~150 Mb/s), but conveniently left out that information. I know that it had been shown in testing to reach 200 Mb/s - call me when real world usage data can show that kind of result. In reality, the kind of progress that @barbegal mentions…

Depends where you are. In london there is an ISP that does replace your internet connection with LTE.

granted at scale its not 150 megs a second, but thats partly down to resources.

On the train I can get between 40-80megabits a second peak. The average speed is around 22megabits: https://opensignal.com/reports/2018/04/uk/state-of-the-mobil....

Re: We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

#46

Post by KaiserPro »

MrQuincle wrote: post #38
jsjohnst wrote: post #32

I’ve done a lot of prototyping with LTE, GPRS, LTE-M, and NB-LTE chipsets (along with having previously worked for a Bluetooth tracker company) and I think this article is making a false conclusion. The terrible battery life of these example products is much more caused by the power devouring GPS or a lack of adequate battery capacity in these products than by the LTE-M chipset.

If you think so, you've to state what the power use was of the chipsets you've used. For example the well-known nRF51: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/1657/how-to-mini... . It can be as low as 20 uA. Between advertisements 4 uA.

its down to duty cycle. That figure is the average consumption. I can make most chipsets consume 20uA, its trivial, just don't take them out of hibernation.

LTE-M is a high(well couple of kilobytes per second) bandwidth, full duplex, high duty cycle transport layer. Not only that, its relatively long distance (well kinda)

Bluetooth is short range Lora has a maximum duty cycle of something like 5% (ie it has to be not transmitting 95% of the time) not only that, its not designed for realtime two way communications, It's niche is a sensor reporting the state of a sensor every n minutes.

Re: We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

#47

Post by jon889 »

chrisfinazzo wrote: post #17

Let's be honest, LTE was always oversold in terms of its technical limitations. The first reference to it that I can recall seeing (years ago) actually was describing LTE Advanced (~150 Mb/s), but conveniently left out that information. I know that it had been shown in testing to reach 200 Mb/s - call me when real world usage data can show that kind of result. In reality, the kind of progress that @barbegal mentions…

In central London on EE I can get 140Mbps sometimes and it’s usually above 80Mbps.

Re: We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

#48

Post by mchan »

chrisfinazzo wrote: post #17

Let's be honest, LTE was always oversold in terms of its technical limitations. The first reference to it that I can recall seeing (years ago) actually was describing LTE Advanced (~150 Mb/s), but conveniently left out that information. I know that it had been shown in testing to reach 200 Mb/s - call me when real world usage data can show that kind of result. In reality, the kind of progress that @barbegal mentions…

> The telecom folks make a bunch of noise about how you can replace a home connection with these kinds of technologies, but until prices come down and speeds go (way) up, the wireline people don't have much to worry about.

In Austria, you can get unlimited 21-25Mbps LTE internet, without a contract for about 20€ per month. It may not be the fastest, but it is enough for Netflix.

Re: We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

#49

Post by diamondo25 »

Uberphallus wrote: post #43
diamondo25 wrote: post #2

We at Hiber [0] are working on an actual low-power solution, which will give the device a way to transmit once a day to a sattelite with a custom 144 bytes user payload. The device location is already encoded, so you can focus on filling those 144 bytes with anything you'd like. You'll have global coverage and a central system to extract the data. [0] https://hiber.global/

Hi, had a look at your tech, quite interesting, but saw no open positions, do you see any opening in the short-medium term?

Thats correct, however you can send your CV to maarten@hiber.global, the CTO.

Re: We Can Stop Pretending LTE-M Is a Low-Power WAN

#50

Post by PanMan »

chrisfinazzo wrote: post #17

Let's be honest, LTE was always oversold in terms of its technical limitations. The first reference to it that I can recall seeing (years ago) actually was describing LTE Advanced (~150 Mb/s), but conveniently left out that information. I know that it had been shown in testing to reach 200 Mb/s - call me when real world usage data can show that kind of result. In reality, the kind of progress that @barbegal mentions…

Just sitting here behind my desk, running a speedtest, I get 210Mbit(!!) out of my iPhone 7, over the T-Mobile network. No optimisations at all, not on a high roof or taped to a mast. Doesn't get more real-world than that.
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