Tracking at Scale: 1 Billion IoT Connections

One billion cellular IoT devices, including smart meters, trackers, smart city infrastructure, healthcare devices, agriculture sensors, and more, are now connected worldwide.

That’s a milestone which signals a fundamental shift in how we track, monitor, and manage assets worldwide. From personal safety wearables to logistics fleets, from pet trackers to industrial equipment, these connections make our world more responsive, efficient, and secure. At MWC26 Barcelona, the GSMA launched its 1 billion LPWA IoT Connections campaign during the IoT Summit on Wednesday 4^th March, alongside a documentary featuring GSMA members and industry leaders who helped make this milestone possible. Register your interest to witness the launch.

This growth is the direct result of purpose-built technologies designed specifically for IoT’s unique demands. Sony’s Altair, has spent over two decades solving the core challenges that make massive-scale IoT deployments possible: keeping costs down, extending battery life, and enabling truly global coverage with simplified hardware.

The Tracking Market: Small Devices, Big Requirements

Trackers represent one of the fastest-growing segments in cellular IoT, with use cases that span across industries and applications:

• Logistics and supply chain tracking monitor shipments across continents, providing real-time visibility into location, temperature, and handling conditions.

• Fleet telematics optimize vehicle routes, monitor driver behavior, and enable usage-based insurance.

• Personal safety devices keep vulnerable individuals connected, from children to elderly family members.

• Pet and livestock trackers give owners peace of mind while letting their animals roam safely.

• Shared mobility solutions manage e-scooters, e-bikes, and other micro-mobility devices in urban environments.

• Industrial asset tracking monitors equipment, tools, and materials across job sites and warehouses.

The majority of trackers need to be small, battery-powered, cost-effective, and able to work anywhere in the world. Traditional cellular technologies were built for smartphones that get charged daily and stay within specific regions, so tracker design meant rethinking everything.

For tracker deployments to scale from thousands to millions of devices, manufacturers need solutions that optimize cost, power, and size.

Cost: Making Economics Work at Scale

Every cent matters when you’re deploying thousands or millions of devices. The cost of components, inventory complexity, and manufacturing efficiency all impact whether a business case makes sense.

The traditional approach in cellular connectivity mandates device operation in specific licensed frequency bands. This requires either an expensive global design to cover all worldwide bands (as in smartphones), or alternatively, a reduced cost hardware variant (SKUs) for different regions, which means separate components for North American, European, and Asian bands. Each variant needs its own design, certification, inventory, and support. For a global tracker deployment, this complexity adds up fast and is not scalable.

Altair’s chips use Half-Duplex FDD (HD-FDD) technology, which eliminates the need for expensive SAW and BAW duplexers and filters. More importantly, HD-FDD enables a single hardware design that works across all global frequency bands (617-960MHz and, 1700-2200MHz), covering all existing commercial network deployments.

The math is straightforward: HD-FDD saves up to a few dollars per device for global deployments compared to traditional cellular designs based on FD-FDD architecture.

Beyond BOM costs, HD-FDD designs also simplify engineering requirements, reduce design size, improve sensitivity, allow lower power PA, lower inventory costs, enable faster time-to-market, and make logistics easier. Development teams can create and certify a single module, device, or variant that can be manufactured at scale, and companies can respond to global opportunities faster without worrying about hardware constraints.

Power: Extending Battery Life from Months to Years

A tracker that needs charging every few days isn’t practical for most applications. Imagine asking livestock farmers to charge cattle trackers weekly, or logistics companies to maintain batteries in thousands of shipping containers. Extended battery life is what makes tracking applications economically viable.

HD-FDD technology facilitates power improvements as well. This seemingly simple change has major real-world impact:

• An always connected pet tracker can run for months on a single battery instead of needing daily charging.

• Shipping container monitors last the entire journey across oceans without battery changes.

• Fleet telematics devices operate for years between service visits.

• Agricultural equipment trackers support full growing seasons in remote fields.

The difference comes down to how efficiently the device uses power when it’s not actively transmitting or receiving. While traditional cellular designs consume significant power even in standby mode, using a smart and power-efficient scheme allows micro-Ampere level (uA) power draw, while still maintaining connection to the cellular network.

For cellular solar-powered trackers, ultra-low power consumption means smaller, cheaper solar panels and smaller batteries. For disposable applications like single-use shipping loggers, batteries last the entire journey. For consumer devices, it means better user experiences and fewer customer complaints.

Size: Fitting Connectivity into Compact Form Factors

Trackers need to be small to be useful.

HD-FDD’s simplified architecture enables more compact designs. Without duplex filters, the entire circuit board shrinks. Size absolutely matters for pet collars, wearables, or other trackers that need to fit inside existing equipment.

Altair’s latest ALT1350 chipset integrates everything needed for complete tracking solution: cellular connectivity modem, host application processor, sensor hub, and positioning capabilities are all on a single chip.

The solution combines GPS, Cellular triangulation, and WiFi location and can switch between them automatically depending on whether the device is indoors or outdoors. This means accurate tracking everywhere without needing separate positioning hardware.

Global Coverage Without Compromise

HD-FDD enables a single device design that works globally, simplifying how companies approach international markets. Because the same hardware works everywhere, it’s much easier to track assets across borders.

And as global roaming agreements between operators expand, it’s now possible to deploy devices with a single connectivity provider that works across regions.

Altair’s leading cellular solutions support LTE-M and NB-IoT with 3GPP Release 14, including 3GPP Release 17 Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) support, which brings satellite connectivity into the picture so that devices stay connected even in remote areas where no terrestrial coverage is available.

Built for the 5G Era and Beyond

LTE-M and NB-IoT aren’t legacy technologies waiting to be phased out. They’re integral to 5G networks and is expected to remain supported through 2045. Network operators worldwide plan to support these low-power wide-area technologies because they address use cases that 5G broadband wasn’t designed to serve.

Companies making infrastructure investments today can count on network support for decades. Devices deployed now will continue working as networks evolve, without requiring hardware upgrades or technology migrations.

As the industry moves toward 5G eRedCap for medium-data rate IoT applications, HD-FDD technology will continue delivering the same cost, size and power benefits that have made it the standard for LTE-M and NB-IoT. The design principles proven in hundreds of millions of deployed low-power devices will extend to the next generation of cellular IoT.

Enabling the Next Billion Connections

Reaching 1 billion cellular IoT connections is impressive. Supporting the next billion, and the billion after that, requires technologies that scale. HD-FDD technology, as defined by the standard, addresses the fundamental challenges: reducing costs enough to make massive deployments economically viable, extending battery life enough to make maintenance practical, and enabling global coverage enough to make deployment simple.

For tracker applications specifically, these advantages make it feasible to track shipping containers across oceans, monitor agricultural equipment across vast farms, or keep pets safe with comfortable, long-lasting collars. They give logistics companies real-time visibility into supply chains, allow fleet managers to optimize operations, and help individuals stay connected to what matters most.

As we celebrate 1 billion connections, we’re really celebrating the innovation, standardization, and engineering that made massive-scale IoT deployments practical and economically sustainable.

And we’re just getting started.