LTE Cat-1 or Long Term Evolution Category 1, is one of 4G LTE technology variants created for the IoT. Within the LTE technology, there are over 20 distinct User Equipment (UE) categories with diverse uplink and downlink options. LTE Cat-1 is categorized as a lower-tier option, offering slow data speeds compared to the other higher LTE UE categories. At the same time, LTE Cat-1 utilizes less power and is simpler, making it well-suited for battery-powered devices commonly used in IoT applications.
Despite belonging to the same LTE technology, Cat M1, Cat M2 and Cat 1 differ in the following way:
Aspect | LTE Cat M1 | LTE Cat M2 | LTE Cat 1 |
|---|---|---|---|
Worldwide Coverage | Poor/Medium - mostly in western industrial countries | Poor/Medium - mostly in western industrial countries | Excellent - same as LTE |
Bandwidth | 1.4 MHz | 1.4 MHz | 20 MHz |
Downlink Rate | 1 Mbps | 2 Mbps | 10 Mbps |
Uplink Rate | 1 Mbps | 2 Mbps | 5 Mbps |
Power Consumption | Very low | Lower | Medium |
Latency | 10-50 ms (Typical) | 10-40 ms (Typical) | 10-30 ms (Typical) |
Use Cases | IoT applications, asset tracking, smart meters, wearables | Demanding IoT applications, industrial sensors, agricultural monitoring, remote monitoring | Continuous data transmission, video streaming, gaming, mobile broadband |
Voice Capabilities | Supports VoLTE | Supports VoLTE | Data-only (no native voice support) |
There are specific advantages of using Cat-1:
Costs. With Cat-1 there’s a certain balance between cost and performance, especially for IoT use cases that imply medium-rate transfer.
Coverage. LTE Cat-1 has been around for over a decade. It offers extensive coverage, facilitating global roaming and enabling the deployment of lots of devices across different geos.
Futureproofing. LTE Cat-1 enables coverage to 2G and 3G networks. As many 3G networks are expected to be substituted in the coming years and the availability of 2G is unclear, LTE Cat-1 is becoming a reliable alternative for businesses in future.
At the same time, LTE Cat-1 is a suitable choice mostly when there is a consistent requirement for devices to transfer significant amounts of data to or from a network. When such a high data transfer is not required, the use of LTE Cat-1 may be unjustified. In addition, for some use cases restricted to specific regions (for instance, smart cities or healthcare applications) or involve the periodic transmission of smaller data volumes, ultra-low-power networks may be more appropriate. NB-IoT and LTE-M are some alternatives for basic applications with low-data requirements.
There are several brands and models of LTE Cat 1 modules available in the market. Here are some popular brands and their corresponding models:
EC21/EC21 Mini EG91/EG91-NA/EG91-EX EC25/EC25 Mini/EC25-AF/EC25-AU
LE910-NA1 ME910C1-NV ME910C1-WW
SARA-R410M-02B SARA-R410M-52B SARA-R410M-82B
HL Series (HL769x, HL78xx) WP Series (WP77xx, WP78xx)
ELS61-E/ELS61-J ELS62-E/ELS62-J ELS31-V/ELS31-C
SIM7000C/SIM7000E/SIM7000G SIM7600C/SIM7600E/SIM7600G
