What is the Cat 1 Modem used for?

　　With step-by-step log out of 2G or 3G networks, IoT technology based on 4G/5G (NB-IoT+4G+5GNR) will initiate the internet of everything. An LTE network has become a major communication network for the IoT industry. Thanks to low cost and low power consumption, Cat 1 attracts a great number of customers that do not have high rate requirements.

　　In the IoT industry involving transmission in a cellular network, application scenarios may fall into the narrow bandwidth service, the low- and medium-rate service, and the high-speed service. The narrow bandwidth service uses the current NB networks to meet its requirements, the high-speed service uses LTE CAT4, CAT6, and 5G networks. The low- and medium-rate service relied on 2G/3G networks to run; with 2G/3G network logout, LTE Cat 1 and cMTC will gradually become the most popular objects of the low- and medium-rate service. The following is the current industry distribution diagram:

　　In the above figure, the low- and medium-rate service occupies about 30% and is mainly applied to wearable devices, elevator monitoring, logistics and other fields with requirements of timely message transmission and small data size. In the real application process, however, some narrow bandwidth services are also using Cat 1 due to the high delay of NB technology. Therefore, Cat 1 also applies to such narrow bandwidth application fields as metering, campus water control, and sharing industries.

　　In terms of application, Cat 1 applies to those scenarios with low requirements for broadband rates but some requirements for power consumption and stable data transmission. The following is the diagram of the application scenario of charging piles. If a charging pile does not raise a high requirement for rates but demands stable data, it can be arranged to correspond to one modem, or multiple charging piles rely on 485 bus to transmit data through the same device.

　　The following is a diagram of the case of agricultural IoT environmental monitoring. From the diagram, we can find that G771 can quickly upload the data collected by various sensors in agricultural greenhouses to remote servers through LTE or GPRS networks. Thus, the control center can monitor the greenhouse dynamics in real-time and respond in a timely manner.

　　Cat 1 networks apply to not only the scenarios of low and medium rates, but also those where Cat 4 does not place high rate requirements, or NB networks require stability and delay. By contrast, Cat 1 involves low cost and wider application.