EDT plus : Energy Consumption Optimization of NB-IoT

Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a popular communication standard used to construct IoT applications. To optimise energy consumption of NB-IoT, Early Data Transmission (EDT) is included within the standard. In this work we propose and describe Improved Early Data Transmission (EDT+) which further reduces energy consumption. EDT+ takes advantage of the fact that most sensor nodes are static and do not move when deployed. Thus, the work required during an NB-IoT wake-up cycle can be significantly reduced. Our NS3 simulations show that EDT+ reduces communication related energy consumption of a node by at least 20%. Thus, EDT+ will be useful to facilitate energy harvesting and battery free deployments.