SIMCOM LTE module lineup - Cathay Tritec -Macnica

About LTE module type (What is Cat. / NB-IoT)

LTE Category (Cat. ) is an indicator of LTE module performance. Basically, the higher the Cat. number, the higher the up/down throughput.

Focusing on the products we handle, we will introduce each type of LTE together with a comparison table.

Cat. 12 is recommended if you want to introduce an LTE communication environment that is faster than Cat. 4 and do not need 5G-level communication speed.

Cat. 12 supports LTE-Advanced (Cat. 6 or later). LTE-Advanced achieves high communication capacity through carrier aggregation (simultaneous communication in two frequency bands).

LTE Cat. M and NB-IoT types are recommended in cases where there is no problem even if the amount of data communication is less than Cat.
LTE Cat. M is a standard used for IoT communication called LPWA (Low Power Wide Area). Uplink/downlink throughput is about 0.3Mbps to 1Mbps, but long-distance communication with low power consumption and low terminal cost is possible.
NB-IoT (Narrow Band IoT) is a standard established after Rel. 13 for IoT devices. It communicates in a narrow bandwidth of about 200kHz. The uplink/downlink throughput is about 20kbps to 250kbps, so although it is slower than Cat. M1, it can be introduced with lower power consumption and lower terminal costs.