Optimal device associations in machine-to-machine networks of NB-IoT and LTE-M standards

The new mass machine to machine communication services currently emerging, such as power grid monitoring, are characterized by a fundamentally different nature of the traffic incoming process. By polling the User Equipment (UE) at regular intervals, these services result in bursting of messages which has a negative impact on the delay in information delivery. In addition, they also require high reliability of information delivery and network availability which can be achieved by using multiple radio access networks (Radio Access Technology, RAT) on one UE. In this paper, the authors develop a mathematical model for estimating radio interface latency in Low Power Wide Area Networks with multiple RATs for bursty messages. The authors also propose a numerical algorithm for estimating optimal UE associations minimizing the information transmission delay on the radio interface.