CS578: Internet of Things

Introduction to
IoT Access Technologies

Dr. Manas Khatua

Assistant Professor, Dept. of CSE, IIT Guwahati
E-mail: [email protected]

“All Birds find shelter during a rain. But Eagle avoids rain by flying above the Clouds” – APJ Abdul Kalam
 Communications Criteria
• A large number of wired and
wireless access technologies are
available

• Communication criteria describes

the characteristics and attributes of
access technologies

• Wireless communication is
prevalent for smart object
connectivity
– ease of deployment
– allows smart objects to be mobile
– moving without losing connectivity

• Few basic criteria:

• Range • Topology
• Frequency bands • Constrained devices
• Power consumptions • Constrained-node networks

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 Communication Range

• Short range:
– tens of meters of maximum distance between two devices
– often considered as an alternative to serial cable
– Example: • Long range
• IEEE 802.15.1 Bluetooth, – greater than 1 mile (1.6 km) between
• IEEE 802.15.7 Visible Light Communications (VLC) two devices
• Medium range – Wireless :
• 2G, 3G, 4G,
– tens to hundreds of meters between two devices
• IEEE 802.11ah,
– Wireless : • Low-Power Wide-Area (LPWA)
• IEEE 802.11 WiFi, communications
• IEEE 802.15.4 Low Rate WPAN, – Wired :
• IEEE 802.15.4g Smart Utility Networks (SUN) • IEEE 802.3 ethernet over optical fiber,
– Wired : • IEEE 1901.2 Broadband PLC
• IEEE 802.3 Ethernet,
• IEEE 1901.2 Narrowband Power Line Communications (PLC)

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 Frequency Bands
• Radio spectrum is regulated by countries and/or organizations
– e.g. International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Telecom
Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)
• Frequency bands leveraged by wireless communications are split between:
1. Licensed 2. Unlicensed
– applicable to long-range access – Unlicensed means that no guarantees or
technologies interference protections are offered
– users must subscribe to services – industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM)
– common licensed spectrum for IoT : portions of the radio bands
• Cellular (900-2100 MHz), – well-known ISM bands for IoT :
• NB-IoT (700-900 MHz) • 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 915 MHz for WiFi, BLE, ZigBee;
• 868 MHz for LoRa

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 Cont…
• Examples of circuit switching networks
– Public telephone network
– Private branch exchange (PBX) system
– Data switch system

• In circuit switching, the path is established before data transmission begins.

– Sometimes less efficient as channel capacity remains unused
– There is connection establishment delay prior to data transfer

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ISM Bands in India

• India also allow 865-867 MHz ISM band

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 Power Consumption
• Grid-powered node • Battery-powered nodes
– node has a direct connection to a grid – bring more flexibility to IoT devices
power source – batteries are small
– communications are usually not limited – batteries can be changed or recharged
by power consumption criteria
– IoT wireless access technologies must
– ease of deployment is limited by the address
availability of a power source • the needs of low power consumption
– makes mobility more complex • connectivity for battery-powered nodes

Bluetooth ZigBee WiFi LoRaWAN NB-IoT

Standard IEEE 802.15.1 IEEE 802.15.4 IEEE 802.11b LoRaWAN 3GPP NB-IoT
Sleeping 9 µA 12 µA 30 µA 0.1 µA 3 µA
Awake/Idle 35 mA 50 mA 245 mA 1.4 mA 6 mA
Transmitting 39 mA 52 mA 251 mA 44 mA 220 mA
Receiving 37 mA 54 mA 248 mA 12 mA 46 mA
Power Supply 3.3 V 3.3 V 5 V* 3.3 V 3.6 V
* The ESP8266 module powered by 3.3 V could be used as WiFi module.
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 Topology
• Three main topology schemes are dominant:
– star, mesh, and peer-to-peer (cluster tree) • IEEE 802.15.4, 802.15.4g,
and wired IEEE 1901.2a
• For long-range and short-range technologies: PLC are generally deployed
– star topology is prevalent as a mesh topology.

• Indoor Wi-Fi deployments

• For medium-range technologies: are mostly star topologies
– star, peer-to-peer, or mesh topology is common

FFD: A node that

implements the full
network functions

RFD: The device can

implement a subset of
protocol functions to
perform just a specialized
part (communication
with the coordinator).
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 Constrained Devices
• Constrained nodes have limited resources that impact their
networking feature set and capabilities.

• RFC 7228 defines three classes for constrained nodes: Class 0, 1, 2

RAM Flash IP stack Security Example

Storage Scheme
Class 0 < 10 KB < 100 KB Not No Push
present button
Class 1 > 10 KB > 100 KB Optimized Light Sensors
IP stack
Class 2 > 50 KB > 250 KB Full IP Yes Smart
stack meter

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 Constrained Networks
• Constrained-node networks are often referred to as low-power and lossy networks (LLNs)

• Layer 1 and Layer 2 protocols must be evaluated in using the following characteristics:
– data rate and throughput
– latency and determinism
– overhead and payload.

• Data rate & throughput:

– data rates available from 100 bps to tens of Mbps
– actual throughput is less, sometimes much less, than the data rate
• Latency & determinism:
– When latency is a strong concern, emergent access technologies such as Time-Slotted Channel
Hopping (TSCH) mode of IEEE 802.15.4e should be considered.
• Overhead & Payload
– The minimum IPv6 MTU size is expected to be 1280 bytes.
– MTU size for IEEE 802.15.4 is 127 bytes; payload in LoRaWAN may be from 19 to 250 bytes
– So, the fragmentation of the IPv6 payload has to be performed by the link layer

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 IoT Access Technologies
• there are many IoT technologies in the market today

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 Comparison of Access Technologies

WiFi BLE Thread Sub-GHz: TI SigFox ZigBee LoRa

Max. Data 72 Mbps 2 250 200 100 250 50
throughput Mbps Kbps Kbps bps Kbps Kbps
Range 100 m 750 m 100 m 4 km 25 km 130 m 10 km
Topology Star P2P/ Mesh/ Star Star Mesh/ Star of Star
Mesh Star Star
Frequency 2.4 GHz 2.4 GHz 2.4 GHz Sub-GHz Sub-GHz 2.4 GHz Sub-1GHz
Power 1 Year (AA Up to years on a coin-cell battery for limited range Few Years
consumption battery) (AA battery)
IP at the Yes No Yes No No No No
device node
Deployed AP smart No No No No No
Devices phones

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Lessons Learned
 Different Attributes of Access Technologies in IoT

 Communication criteria

 Communication Range

 Frequency Band

 Power consumption

 Topology

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 Figures and slide materials are taken from the following sources:

1. David Hanes et al., “IoT Fundamentals: Networking Technologies, Protocols,

and Use Cases for the Internet of Things”, 1st Edition, 2018, Pearson India.

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