Cat-NB1, and 3GPP LTE release 14 Cat-NB1 and Cat-NB2 standards

[con2021]

Hi, I have 3 questions about the NBIOT standards please

1- How do we set which NBIOT service shall be used by our FW (3 Cat-NB1, 14 Cat-NB1, or Cat-NB2 standards)? 

2- Is that selectable by our modem (when the network supports it) or fully controlled by the network?

3- How can we know which standard is used/supported by the network?

[Albrecht Markus Schellenberger]

Hello again Maysam,

please find below the answers to your question.

1- How do we set which NBIOT service shall be used by our FW (3 Cat-NB1, 14 Cat-NB1, or Cat-NB2 standards)? 

There is no direct configuration option for 3GPP release baseline and current nRF9160 SW releases do not support full 3GPP Rel-14 baseline. But there is an AT command that can be used to enable/disable 3GPP Rel-14 features with otherwise 3GPP Rel-13 baseline SW that we currently have. The command for this is %REL14FEAT and there are few options in commands for generic Rel-14 features and also options for throughput enhancements that make the device function according to NB2 category.

AT%REL14FEAT:

Generic Rel-14 feature configuration options; <mac_inact_monitor_support>, <as_rai_support> and <interf_cmm_intraf_rsrq>.

Cat-NB2 configuration options; <NB_dual_harq_support> and <NB_max_TB_size_support>.

2- Is that selectable by our modem (when the network supports it) or fully controlled by the network?

If these features are enabled, they will be automatically used when network supports those features, i.e. device indicates support for these features when setting up the connection and network makes the decision if feature will be used or not during the connection.

3- How can we know which standard is used/supported by the network?

It is not possible to know if network supports these features before device makes an attempt to use them (see previous answer) and there is no API that would tell the application if feature support was there or not. If there is need to know this then that information should be acquired via network operator. Otherwise there are just indirect methods to see if configuration had any impact, e.g. did data throughput increase after activating those NB2 features?

Regards,

Markus