NarrowBand-Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a standards-based low power wide area (LPWA) technology developed to enable a wide range of new IoT devices and services. NB-IoT significantly improves the power consumption of user devices, system capacity and spectrum efficiency, especially in deep coverage. Battery life of more than 10 years can be supported for a wide range of use cases.

New physical layer signals and channels are designed to meet the demanding requirement of extended coverage – rural and deep indoors – and ultra-low device complexity. Initial cost of the NB-IoT modules is expected to be comparable to GSM/GPRS. The underlying technology is however much simpler than today’s GSM/GPRS and its cost is expected to decrease rapidly as demand increases.

Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software, it is an easy tool for fast prototyping, aimed at students without a background in electronics and programming. As soon as it reached a wider community, the Arduino board started changing to adapt to new needs and challenges, differentiating its offer from simple 8-bit boards to products for IoT applications, wearable, 3D printing, and embedded environments. All Arduino boards are completely open-source, empowering users to build them independently and eventually adapt them to their particular needs. The software, too, is open-source, and it is growing through the contributions of users worldwide.

NB-IoT Shield is an expansion board for Arduino to add NB-IoT technology. With NB-IoT Shield and Arduino, user can study/evaluate and do POC for NB-IoT solution rapidly.

The NB-IoT Shield is loaded with offshore NB-IoT module. include:

• Nb-IoT Bee QB05, QB08, QB20, they use Quectel BC95-B5 /B8 and B20 module. The module is designed for only use in NB-IoT network. and difference suffix reference to different NB-IoT Band. (These modules are discontinue. recommend to use NB-IoT Bee 95G as replacement)
• Nb-IoT Bee 95G, it uses Quectel BC95-G module. This module is a global regions module can work on different operators.
• Nb-IoT Bee QG96, it uses Quectel BG96 module. This module supports mutli-bands. Except NB-IoT, It also support LTE Cat M1 & EGPRS.