After public consultation 45, ANATEL published Acts 630 and 631 on February 1, outlining the testing requirements for Nb-IoT LTE Cat. M1 and NB1.

Verifying the need to expand connectivity options for M2M (Machine to Machine) solutions and its successor IoT, ANATEL started investing in developing products compatible with the existing mobile networks to enhance their coverage area. However, the traditional endpoint devices available on the market, currently used in 4G LTE networks, consume significant power and have unnecessary complexity in their embedded hardware resources. This makes them unsuitable for applications that require low bandwidth, such as water level monitoring, gas consumption tracking, or electric power devices.

In response, the industry has developed IoT solutions compatible with 4G LTE networks to address the market's growing demand for low-power and long-range coverage options. The Narrowband IoT standards, known as Narrowband IoT (Nb-IoT), were specifically designed to meet the needs for lower hardware complexity and energy consumption by using minimal resources from the communication support network.

In this regard, the 3GPP consortium, which includes representatives from the global industry, developed new communication categories compatible with the LTE standard called M1 and NB1. These standards primarily focus on reducing: complexity, bandwidth, throughput, and transmission power.

Consequently, based on Brazilian regulations and the international reference applied to the 3GPP standards (ETSI TS 136 521-1 V14.4.0 (2017-11) and ETSI TS 136 141 V15.3.0 (2018-07)), ORCN conducted a study to identify the applicable criteria for assessing the technical conformity of the radio interface of IoT devices, as they will connect to the mobile service providers' networks in the country using the radio spectrum.