An Overview of 3GPP Enhancements on Machine to Machine Communications

The broad connection of devices to the Internet, known as the IoT or M2M, requires low-cost power-efficient global connectivity services. New physical layer solutions, MAC procedures, and network architectures are needed to evolve the current LTE cellular systems to meet the demands of IoT services. Several steps have been taken under the 3GPP to accomplish these objectives and are included in the upcoming 3GPP LTE standards release (3GPP Release 13). In this tutorial article, we present an overview of several features included in 3GPP to accommodate the needs of M2M communications, including changes in the physical layer such as enhanced machine type communications, and new MAC and higher-layer procedures provided by extended discontinuous reception. We also briefly discuss the narrowband IoT, which is in the development stage with a target completion date of June 2016.