The 3GPP association has published 2 cellular narrow band IoT standards in the release 13: NB-IoT (“narrow band for the Internet of Things”) and Cat-M (“category machine”). They are also known as LTE Cat-NB1 and LTE Cat-M1. Libelium has integrated the BG96 chipset by Quectel to meet these standards. This module has been included in the Waspmote ecosystem as an OEM development kit, where the NB-IoT and the Cat-M connectivities can be easily tested in pilot projects or proof of concepts applications.

• Model: BG96 (Quectel)
• Frequency bands:
• Cat NB1 / Cat M1: LTE FDD: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B8/B12/B13/B18/ B19/B20/B25**/B26*/B28
• LTE TDD: B39 (for Cat-M1 only)
• EGPRS: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Data:
• Cat-NB1: Max. 32 kbps (DL), Max. 70 kbps (UL)
• Cat-M1: Max. 375 kbps (DL), Max. 375 kbps (UL)
• EDGE: Max. 296 kbps (DL), Max. 236.8 kbps (UL)
• GPRS: Max. 107 kbps (DL), Max. 85.6 kbps (UL)
• SMS:
• Point-to-point MO and MT
• SMS Cell Broadcast
• Text and PDU Mode
• GNNS: Embedded GNSS as optional. Supports GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou/Compass, Galileo and QZSS.
• Antenna connectors:
• U.FL for main antenna (cellular)
• U.FL for GNSS antenna
• External antenna: 5 dBi
• Sensitivity:
• -113 dBm @Cat NB1, CE Level 0
• -107 dBm @Cat M1, 1.4 MHz Bandwidth, CE Mode A
• SIM size: Nano-SIM (4FF standard) (not included)
• Protocols: PPP/TCP/UDP/SSL/TLS/FTP(S)/HTTP(S)/NITZ/ PING/MQTT