The past and present of Cat.1

What is Cat.1？

Cat 1 is an LTE communication standard designed for the express aim of servicing IoT applications. It scales down bandwidth and communication demand to save power and cost for large-scale or long-range IoT systems. Cat-1 is the only fully-available cellular IoT option at the moment and represents an early push towards connecting IoT devices using existing LTE networks. While the performance is inferior to 3G networks, it’s an excellent option for IoT applications that require a browser interface or voice. The major attraction is that it’s already standardized, and more importantly, it’s simple to transition into the Cat-1 network. Experts predict that as 3G technology sunsets, Cat-1 networks will take its place.?

Development of Cat.1

2009: 3GPP released Release 8, officially bringing LTE to the world. At that time, LTE terminal categories were defined, namely as Cat.1, Cat.2, Cat.3, Cat.4, and Cat.5, with different speed levels, to meet the needs of different Io-T scenarios.

2010-2018: Few usage scenarios for cellular IoT, has kept Cat.1 silent for years until 2015. The increasing wearable electronic product market and needs brought Cat 1 into horizon. However, due to the un-standardized speed, chip, platform and other factors, Cat.1 still missed the chance to show it’s capability.

2019: Cat.1 chip platform for terminals is released. 5G is commercialized and the withdrawal of 2G/3G is accelerated. The low-speed Io-T terminals are seeking for corresponding technologies replacement. With the advantages of stable network, low cost, seamless access to the LTE network, and the encouragement of policies and operators, Cat 1 chips and platforms are generated by certain scale of module manufacturers has begun to take shape. So do the appliocations of Cat.1?

2020: Module manufacturers launched more Cat.1 modules to the market. In May, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Further Promoting the Comprehensive Development of Mobile Internet of Things", stating: "Promote the migration of 2G/3G Internet of Things services, guide new IoT terminals to abandon 2G/3G. All IoT business shall migrate to NB-IoT/4G (including Cat.1)/5G network, and establish a comprehensive ecosystem of mobile IoT with coordinated development." In the 4G era, to conform the trend of Internet of Things, cellular communications began to differentiate between high, medium and low rates. With the uplink rate of 5Mbps and downlink rate of 10Mbps, Cat.1 can meet the needs of various IoT terminals in medium-rate scenarios.

Then it came the "631" structure of Io-T connectivity. The so-called "631" means 60% of the connections are through the low-speed network, 30% through medium-speed, and 10%?through the high-speed. LTE Cat.1 mainly carries 30% of the medium-speed IoT connections, in addition to 4G, but also includes most of 3G and some 2G.

2021-2022: According to TSR data, global Cat.1 chip shipments will reach 117 million in 2021, with an over 300% year-on-year increase, in which, China contributes 60%-70% of the market.

Future trends of Cat.1?

The incremental expansion and demand of 2G/3G/4G(LTE Cat.4), in stock market replacement switching and intelligent transformation indicates that the iteration of new Cat.1 will extend more application scenarios. Since the technological evolution of wide-coverage & high-speed network is still on going, it is expected CAT.1 is still to meet rapid growth in the next few years. TSR also expects global Cat.1 chip shipments to approach 200 million in 2026.

Counterpoint has updated its forecast report on the global market for cellular IoT modules. Based on the standards of cellular IoT modules, the report analyzes the growth trend of cellular IoT modules of different standards over the next eight years.

The report shows that by 2030, global shipments of cellular Io-T modules are expected to exceed 1.2 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 12%. The report also gives the evolution trend of various cellular IoT module shipments from 2018 to 2030, among which, 5G, NB-IoT, Cat.1bis and Cat.1 are the largest. Its analysts also pointed out that technologies such as NB-IoT, LTE-M and Cat.1 have driven the mass adoption of cellular IoT over the past few years. The global cellular IoT market in this decade is during the transition from 4G to 5G. But in the next 5 years, Cat.1 is expected to get more share of it.

According to its ecology, Cat.1 is becoming more mature and so are related IoT applications. With increasing terminal connections through the cellular Internet of Things, the era of "Internet of Everything" is accelerating towards us. The operation and structure of the whole society will undergo fundamental changes, and working efficiency and citizen life will also usher in an unimaginable leap.

Application of Cat.1 in smart lighting

To meet requirements of smart lighting management and goals of energy saving and emission reduction, cities are adopting the lamp control systems. However, most of them have problems like poor adaptability, long inspection cycle, and low online rate. Upon the shortcomings of poor communication and large area communication failures in lighting control process, a more stable, reliable and faster network is expected by the whole market.

In the past two years, Cat.1 has been proved its outstanding features in various other application fields. It is now to be used smart street lighting control. Its "simple", "economical", "wide", "large" and "stable" surpasses the traditional single lamp control methods, almost by each aspect. Its popularity in the lighting industry grows rapidly.

Cat.1 communication well solved the problem of instant massive join attempts of street lights due to the narrow bandwidth or poor network handling. It is meant to be connected to any LTE network, with rather high speed and low latency. Compared to Cat.4, Cat.1 possesses the advantages of greater idle time, sleep mode, low power consumption, low complexity and especially, lower cost. It well filled the blanks of medium and low-speed IoT network products in the smart lighting condition, and greatly broadened the industrial ecological boundary for all kinds of applications.