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10MTC Service – Network Architecture

10.1. Functional architecture

The term CIoT (Cellular Internet of Things) refers to the evolution of the evolved packet system (EPS) for taking into account connected objects.

LTE-M and NB-IoT (NarrowBand Internet of Things) are two technologies whose specificity lies in the radio interface described in Chapter 11.

These two types of radio interfaces use the same network architecture described in Figure 10.1.

The machine type communication (MTC) is performed between an MTC application hosted in the user equipment (UE) and an MTC application hosted in an application server (AS).

The MTC application server can use the services of a services capability server (SCS) to gain access to certain features of the EPS network.

For the direct model, the application server connects directly to the EPS network to establish communications with the terminal using the user plane without using the SCS entity.

For the indirect model, the application server connects indirectly to the EPS network through an SCS entity to use additional MTC services.

For the hybrid model, the application server simultaneously uses the direct model to connect directly to the EPS network in order to establish direct communications and the indirect model using the SCS entity.

Figure 10.1. Network architecture

10.1.1. MTC-IWF entity

The MTC-IWF (Interworking) entity hides the internal ...