Satellite communication drives competition in the Internet of Things to rise. How can module manufacturers win the tens of billions market?

As early as the 1980s, broadcasting television signals and forwarding communication messages through satellites has become a mainstream trend. At that time, Motorola proposed a great idea - to build a global satellite phone network through a near-Earth constellation of 66 satellites, allowing users to make calls anywhere in the world, also known as Iridium. Star Project.

As we all know at the end of the story, due to limitations of the business model and technological maturity, this idea did not come to fruition. However, this attempt opened a "skylight" for the communication system and laid the foundation for the subsequent development of satellite communications.

After entering the 21st century, during the period of rapid development of cellular networks and the full explosion of smartphones, people began to pay attention to the issue of network coverage, which directly promoted the combination of satellite communication services and cellular network services. Especially after Elon Musk proposed the Starlink project in 2015, satellite communications have been further pushed into the public eye.

Since then, satellite technology has developed steadily, and since the 3GPP R17 standard was frozen in 2022, NTN (Non-Terrestrial Network, non-terrestrial network) technology has directly become a hot spot in the industry, and "mobile phone direct connection to satellite" has taken the lead in becoming a reality.

Subsequently, a number of mainstream mobile phone manufacturers announced their new products. With the heated discussion of "the advent of the mobile phone satellite era", the application of satellite communications in the field of Internet of Things has also received more and more attention. It will exert huge strategic value and economic benefits in many fields.

Two-wheel drive, satellite IoT drives the tens of billions market

As the scale of the Internet of Things grows, so does user demand for ubiquitous connectivity. Traditional mobile communication technology mainly relies on fixed cellular base stations on the ground to expand network coverage. This also results in vast forests, oceans, deep mountains, grasslands and other areas that are far away that cellular networks cannot reach.

According to statistics, the world’s existing mobile communication networks only cover 20% of the land surface and 6% of the total area of ​​the earth. Therefore, the emergence of satellite IoT has established a new data transmission channel for scenarios that were previously unable to be covered by terrestrial networks.

In the past, due to the extremely high cost of satellite launches, people hoped that a satellite that could "stand high and see far" could achieve wider coverage. Therefore, high-orbit satellites (GEO) were often chosen for initial satellite communications. . However, with the upgrading and mass production of industrialized devices, the development cost of satellites has also been greatly reduced. In addition, the cost of rocket launches has been reduced. Low-orbit satellites have gradually become the mainstream trend of satellite IoT communications.

Data shows that the coverage area of ​​a single low-orbit satellite generally ranges from a few hundred kilometers to thousands of kilometers in diameter. Its signal transmission distance is short, the transmission delay is small, the link loss is low, and the overall manufacturing cost is also lower. , so it is more suitable for carrying rich applications of satellite Internet of Things.

In addition to being driven by actual demand on the application side, the rise of new technologies is naturally inseparable from the guidance of policies and standards.

In June 2022, the 3

GPP R17 standard was frozen, and the non-terrestrial network NTN was introduced, using the satellite communication network as a necessary supplement to the terrestrial network. In addition to providing standards and specifications that support NTN based on 5G NR, R17 also provides standards and specifications that support the integration of IoT technologies such as NB-IoT and eMTC with NTN. NTN that supports the Internet of Things is mainly targeted at scenarios such as shipping, wilderness, energy collection, agriculture, and environmental monitoring where base stations cannot be deployed, or where base station deployment and maintenance are difficult and costly.

The freezing of the R17 standard undoubtedly opens a new stage of rapid development of the satellite Internet of Things. Market research organization IoT Analytics analyzed in its 2022 IoT market summary and future forecast report released in May this year that the number of satellite IoT connections is expected to grow from 6 million to 22 million between 2022 and 2027,

The annual compound growth rate is 25%. Although the number of 22 million connections has a small impact on the overall market, some companies have begun to integrate satellite connections into chips, which will also significantly accelerate the application of satellite IoT. In addition, based on data from Omdia, ABI Research, McKinsey and other institutions,

it is estimated that by 2025, the output value of satellite IoT will reach US$560 billion to US$850 billion.

According to the forecast of the Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the global satellite communication terminal market will reach US$10.9 billion by 2027.

Flowers are born, and the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain are actively deployed

Industrial application is always the best testing ground to test the maturity of technology. For the satellite Internet of Things, on the one hand can achieve tracking, control and management in deserts, oceans, forests and other areas that cannot be reached by cellular networks. For example, in scenarios such as heavy engineering equipment at construction sites, ocean-going ships, offshore oil wells, and global supply chain management of multinational groups, related equipment needs to be monitored and managed in real time, and the realization of these functions requires satellite networks.

On the other hand, Satellite IoT can also serve as a redundant system for cellular IoT, filling in the gaps in time when the cellular network is unstable or difficult to fully cover. For example, fleet management applications currently mostly use cellular network connections. However, during fleet transportation, cellular network disconnection may occur due to network coverage, weather changes, network interference and other issues. Satellite IoT can ensure critical security when cellular signals are lost. Continuous delivery of data streams.

In summary, the satellite IoT can be used in a variety of scenarios such as network communications in ocean shipping, mineral development, power generation, oil field production asset management, agricultural and forestry environmental monitoring, livestock loss monitoring, and geological disaster early warning.

The module leader leads the way, and the application side is ready to go

It is true that with the expansion of the market pie and the demand for application scenarios, more and more companies and capital will pay attention to the huge development space behind the satellite Internet of Things, and it will also become a new highland for competition in the Internet of Things industry. . As the global leader in cellular IoT modules, Quectel is also one of the first companies to deploy satellite IoT.

For example,

In March 2023, Quectel announced the launch of the CC200A-LB satellite communication module, and also specially provided a "three-in-one" satellite product package of "module satellite connection service antenna" , to help users quickly realize the overall design and accelerate the implementation of technology; 2In June 2023, led by China Telecom Satellite Corporation, Quectel Communications joined forces with upstream and downstream partners such as Unisoc, Penghu Wuyu, etc. A series of major 5G NTN (non-terrestrial network, non-terrestrial network) technology tests have been carried out at an industry-leading speed.

More than that, as the world's leading provider of overall IoT solutions, Quectel is pursuing its victory and has released

new satellite communication modules CC660D-LS and 3GPP NTN R17-compliant satellite communication modules during the 2023 Shanghai Mobile World Congress. The standard new 5G satellite communication module CC950U-LS provides a highly stable channel for IoT terminals to directly connect to satellites.

Among them, Quectel’s latest

5G satellite communication module CC950U-LS is based on UNISOC’s first satellite communication SoC chip V8821, which uses advanced 22nm technology and integrates baseband and transceiver , power management integrated circuit (PMIC), FLASH/SRAM, etc., making CC950U-LS more advantageous in terms of power consumption, size, etc.

In addition, CC950U-LS complies with the R17 IoT NTN standard, supports Inmarsat and Tiantong dual satellite communications, and supports the satellite n255/n256 frequency band defined by 3GPP. At the same time, this module can also provide two-way data transmission for various types of equipment, so it is especially suitable for use scenarios that require two-way communication, such as wild adventures, offshore operations, etc. In addition, CC950U-LS can also provide more efficient wireless solutions for vertical IoT application industries such as emergency rescue, vehicles, and water conservancy.

More importantly, the scenarios where satellite communications can show their full potential are generally in special unattended environments such as forests, oceans, deserts, etc., so the standby capability of the terminal is very important. The CC950U-LS supports PSM power saving mode and a wide voltage operating range of 2.1 V~4.2 V, which effectively extends the battery life of the terminal and can operate normally even at low power levels.

In addition, considering the complexity of terminal application scenarios, CC950U-LS adopts an LCC package that is easier to solder and has a classic 23.6 mm × 19.9 mm × 2.2 mm design, which greatly reduces customers’ development work when switching products. quantity. It is worth mentioning that in view of the pain points of existing cellular communications such as blind spots in signal coverage and the inability to transmit information monitoring data in real time,

Quectel’s satellite communication module CC950U-LS has carried out a number of space-based Field testing of satellite-based Internet of Things application scenarios, with good test results.

According to Wang Peng, senior product manager of Quectel Communications, the smart buoy developed based on the CC950-LS module supports water body pH value detection, oxygen content detection, water temperature and conductivity detection, and can be used without the ground In areas covered by the Internet, water quality and hydrological information has been transmitted back through the satellite Internet of Things.

As of today, Quectel Communications has provided a variety of satellite communication modules that meet private protocols and 3GPP standards for the satellite communication field. It can also provide customers with satellite connection management platforms and terminal antenna design services, providing customers with access to The field of satellite IoT lowers the development threshold.

Write at the end

In fact, in addition to the R17 version, 3GPP has a long-term evolution plan for NTN, which is reflected in the 5G R18 version standard and 6G vision. In the launched 5G R18 standard, evolution has been carried out for the NTN field in terms of coverage enhancement, support for spectrum above 10GHz, further enhancement of mobility and business continuity, terminal performance optimization, network verification of terminal location reporting, etc., improving NTN performance. 6G is oriented towards the vision of integrated air, space and ground communications, which places higher demands on NTN and requires deeper integration with terrestrial networks.

There is no doubt that promoting the mature implementation of satellite IoT and accelerating the integration and development of satellite IoT and 5G networks will become the key to building an integrated information network of space, space and ground. In the future, the complementary cooperation and integrated development of satellite IoT and terrestrial networks are also expected to become the backbone of IoT services!

The above is the detailed content of Satellite communication drives competition in the Internet of Things to rise. How can module manufacturers win the tens of billions market?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!