What is EC-GSM-IoT?

EC-GSM-IoT stands for Extended Coverage GSM IoT. This is a low-power wide area (LPWA) cellular technology based on eGPRS and designed as a high capacity, long range, low energy cellular system for IoT applications. EC-GSM-IoT can be deployed on existing GSM networks with a simple software update. This will allow for EC-GSM-IoT networks to co-exist with 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile networks. It will also benefit from all the security and privacy mobile network features, such as support for user identity confidentiality, entity authentication, confidentiality, data integrity, and mobile equipment identification. Since this technology can be activated by a simple software update on existing GSM networks, deployment will be very easy and will be able to have wide coverage.

Like NB-IOT and LTE CAT M1 devices running on EC-GSM-IoT can a battery life of up to 10 years for a number of use cases.

The latest EC-GSM-IoT Spec was ratified in in Release 13 of the 3GPP specification (LTE-Advanced Pro), in June 2016. As Per Release 13 the technology specs are are follows:

Deployment: In-GSM Band

Modulation: TDMA/FDMA, GSMK, 8PSK

Downlnk Peak Data Rate: 70 kbps (GSMK), 240 kbps (8PSK)

Uplink Peak Data Rate: 70 kbps (GSMK), 240 kbps (8PSK)

Latency: 700 ms to 2 seconds

Technology Bandwidth: 200 khz per channel

Duplex Technology: Half Duplex and FDD

Transmit Power Class: 33 dBm, 23 dBm

EC-GSM-IOT network trials have already started, and the first commercial launch is planned to take place in 2017.