Evolving 5G NR to Connect the Internet of Things

5G is the unifying connectivity fabric that will connect virtually everything around us. Although today’s commercial 5G NR networks, based on 3GPP Rel-15, focus mostly on mobile broadband use cases (e.g., smartphones), the 5G NR evolution in 3GPP Rel-16 and beyond is expanding the reach of 5G to a wider range of IoT devices. For high-performance IoT, the work to support ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) has already begun and it is continuing to enhance further. For low-power wide-area IoT (LPWA), we are building on the solid eMTC/NB-IoT foundation to enable even more efficient massive IoT connectivity. In this talk, it will be discussed how 5G NR is already capable of connecting mobile broadband devices today (e.g., UHD security cameras), its evolution to enable even higher performance IoT (e.g., wireless industrial ethernet), and the new 5G innovations that can better address the low-complexity massive IoT (e.g., sensors, meters, and many more).