Last week’s blog discussed what IoT devices are and the insights that can be expected once data is processed. To read last week’s blog click here.
The majority of IoT devices communicate wirelessly, and understanding the different methods of connectivity is key to having a suitable solution.
To understand how devices communicate wirelessly in the modern interconnected world there are a few terms to discuss.
Spectrum - Something on a scale between two extreme points. Eg the socio-economic or political spectrum. Connectivity for the purpose of this blog, relates to the radio spectrum. More on the radio spectrum shortly.
Frequency is the number of times a specific event occurs within a specified time interval. A standard measure of frequency is hertz (Hz), in the radio spectrum this refers to the number of cycles per second
1 cycle or oscillation a second is 1.0 Hz. The x axis in this picture is seconds
5 cycles a second is 5.0 Hz
The Radio Spectrum covers 3Hz-3000Ghz. E.g. 1GHz is 1,000,000,000 Hz. So 9 million cycles in a second. The radio spectrum is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This spectrum is much vaster and includes visible light and microwave rays. The electromagnetic spectrum ranges from 1Hz to 300Ehz. It would take about half an A4 page of zeros to write out that number in Hz.
Bands - are a group of frequencies – a particular cellular network can be established on a band or a combination of bands, eg Sparks 4G LTE cellular network operates on the 1800 MHz band (1800-1899) when it first launched in 2014 and soon after took over the 700 MHz band (700-799), when the analogue TV band was taken down.
Coverage - The distance a radio signal travels depends on the frequency it operates on.
Higher frequencies means faster decay or loss of connectivity, so 2.1Ghz reaches a smaller section of people vs 800Mhz. Networks of the future need to have many bands to be able to achieve very fast speeds at different distances.
Frequencies within the radio spectrum are by definition a finite resource. There is a shortage of bands in the lower end of the spectrum. In New Zealand, bands on the spectrum are managed by the Crown, through the Radio Spectrum Management (RSM) team within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, on behalf of the people of New Zealand. Their goal is the efficient use of the radio spectrum to provide safety-of-life, telecommunications, broadcasting and other services that are essential to the functioning of a modern economy.
The RSM is responsible for providing advice to Government on the allocation of radio frequencies to meet the demands of emerging technologies and services, in order to ensure radio spectrum provides the greatest economic and social benefit to New Zealand.
Understanding frequencies, bands and coverage might sound like an overwhelming topics that are too ‘technical’ for most but when broken down to their parts are simple to grasp.
In our next blog, we discuss 5G, and why it’s a big deal for the world of IoT.
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