Narrowband Internet of Things for Non-Terrestrial Networks

The Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a cellular access technology developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to provide wide area connectivity for the Internet of Things. Since its introduction in 3GPP Release 13, NB-IoT has in a few years achieved a remarkable market presence and is currently providing coverage in close to 100 networks. To further extend the reach of NB-IoT and to connect the unconnected, 3GPP Release 17 is studying the feasibility of adapting NB-IoT to support non-terrestrial networks (NTNs). In this article, we review the fundamentals of NB-IoT and NTN, and explain how NB-IoT can be adapted to support satellite communication through a minimal set of modifications.