This report is a primer on how satellite IoT is evolving. It examines the types of satellites (GEOs, LEOs and MEOs), frequency bands (from VHF to V-band), a range of emerging direct-to-satellite protocols (including NB-IoT, Sigfox, LoRaWAN and 5G NR), architectures and end device types.
Satellite communications has seen a surge of interest in recent years, particularly with the launch of constellations of thousands of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites from the likes of SpaceX and Amazon’s Project Kuiper. There are also dozens of smaller constellations of LEOs aimed at addressing IoT, and in many cases starting to support 5G, NB-IoT, LoRaWAN and other traditionally terrestrial technologies.
This report is a primer on how satellite IoT is evolving. It examines the types of satellites (GEOs, LEOs and MEOs), frequency bands (from VHF to V-band), a range of emerging direct-to-satellite protocols (including NB-IoT, Sigfox, LoRaWAN and 5G NR), architectures and end device types.
