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waynerad@diasp.org
Wayne Radinsky

"3GPP Release-18 Physical Layer Enhancements for IoT-NTN".

"The advent of mega satellite constellations has paved the way for bringing cellular connectivity to mobile broadband as well as Internet of Things (IoT) devices in unconnected or remote regions via satellites, thus complementing the terrestrial cellular coverage. With this motivation, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) introduced Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) support for IoT technologies including Long-Term Evolution (LTE) for Machine-Type Communications (LTE-MTC) and Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) in Release-17, which are collectively known as IoT-NTN. Release-17 IoT-NTN focused on only the essential changes to the existing IoT specification to enable IoT operation in satellite scenarios."

So in case you didn't follow the techspeak, what this is about is being able to have electronic devices in the most remote parts of the world, and as long as they have electric power, they can get on the internet and transmit data and receive data by communicating through satellites. They need particular electronic circuits that speak what have become known as "internet of things" (IoT) protocols -- protocols originally designed to carry internet protocol (TCP/IP) over low power and low bandwidth radio links.

Here we find an organization that develops standards for terrestrial cellular phone networks (3GPP) getting in on the act and developing standards for this internet of things using satellites, which they call IoT-NTN ("NTN" for "non-terrestrial networks").

When you run IoT communication over cellular networks (before getting to satellites -- regular cellular networks), that goes by the name "LTE-MTC", which as you see above, stands for "Long-Term Evolution Machine Type Communication". Don't ask me how cellular network standards came to be called "Long-Term Evolution", but that's what they're called. Tack on "Machine Type Communication" and now you're talking about machine-to-machine instead of human-to-human communication. How does this have to be modified to get it to work through satellites? That's what 3GPP's Release-17 answers. But this is Release-18.

Finishing out the abstract:

"IoT-NTN was further evolved in Release-18 and several performance enhancements were introduced. In this article, an overview of the Release-18 physical layer enhancements for IoT-NTN is provided. Specifically, a new feature related to disabling Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) feedback is described which helps mitigate the impact of HARQ stalling on throughput. Enhancements related to improving Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) operation are also discussed that enable the user equipment (UE) to maintain its uplink (UL) synchronization if its GNSS position becomes invalid during an ongoing connection. In addition, the performance evaluation of IoT-NTN technologies is presented in the context of International Mobile Telecommunications-2020 (IMT-2020) satellite performance requirements related to connection density."

So Release-17 came out in 2021, and Release-18 just came out, and Release-18 ties down some loose ends from Release-17. If you're wondering if "Global Navigation Satellite System" (GNSS) refers to the GPS system, the answer is... yes, but GNSS is actually a generic term for all GPS-type systems -- the US system is called GPS, Russia has a system called GLONASS (from "Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema"), China has a system called BeiDou, and the European Union has a system called Galileo. Japan has a system called the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), but rather than function as its own independent system, it's just a 4-satellite system that supplements the US GPS system around Japan.

Another loose end is HARQ, which stands for Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest. HARQ is a combination of an error-correction protocol and a system for requesting messages get repeated. With error-correction codes, additional bits are added to messages to enable errors to be detected and corrected -- within limits. If there are too many errors, however, the error-correction system gives up and the system requests the whole message be repeated. The "hybrid" part of "HARQ" is about how the HARQ system is a hybrid system that handles both -- error correction and message repeating.

The paper is paywalled, so I had to go searching on the internet to find out more. See below.

3GPP Release-18 Physical Layer Enhancements for IoT-NTN

#solidstatelife #communication #cellular #satellite #gps #iot #iotntn

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danie10@squeet.me
Danie

South Africa’s Melon Mobile hands-on tested — self-service RICA and data that never expires

Stalk flying with a white cloth hanging from its beak, with a watermelon carried inside
One MyBroadband forum member ordered a Melon Mobile SIM and shared their experience with the network.

They said the signup process was relatively straightforward, with everything happening within the Melon Mobile app, which is currently available for anyone to download from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

The signup requires an ID number, an existing cellphone number, and the client’s full name and delivery information. The SIM was delivered the day after they completed their registration.

So it does cost a bit more, but that is dramatically offset by the fact the data does not expire. That would be ideal for light usage users. But it does look like there is a monthly cost, so to benefit from the rollover, you really need to take a smaller package. There is also no eSIM option (seems this will be launched after 13 April 2023).

Nevertheless, it is good to see some new offering, and one that addresses a big issue many have had with expiring data. Time will tell, of course, whether the service survives into the future.

See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/486559-melon-mobile-hands-on-tested-self-service-rica-and-data-that-never-expires.html
#Blog, #cellular, #MelonMobile, #southafrica, #technology

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nowisthetime@pod.automat.click
nowisthetime

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"Q: I only keep my #phone for emergencies when I travel. That has minimal impact, right?

A: The other thing that happens when you make a call is you are demanding service. When you turn on your phone in a remote location where cell phone service is poor or non-existent, your provider registers that as a request for service. If it gets enough requests for service in that location, it will build a #cell #tower there. Even in a city, when more people make calls at the same time than there is capacity for in the nearest tower, or when everyone starts using more bandwidth or gets more apps than the tower can handle, calls start to be dropped, each dropped call is registered as a request for service, and soon your city has applications for even more cell towers to handle the increased traffic.

Q: I got sick from a #smart phone. My flip phone is much safer, right?

A: Smart phones didn’t come among us until 2004. But the first wave of digital, voice-only cell towers in the United States in 1996 #killed at least ten thousand #people in a matter of months,[22] and millions more from diabetes, heart disease, and cancer in the succeeding years.[23]

https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/cell-phones-questions-and-answers-2/See less

CELL PHONES: Questions and Answers - #Cellular Phone Task Force

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