This year has been a milestone one for the Internet of Things (IoT) industry. The GSM Association (GSMA), the global industry organization that represents mobile network operators and driving collaboration, standards and innovation across the mobile ecosystem, recently announced that more than one billion devices are now connected through the two major cellular low-power, wide-area network (LPWAN) technologies: Long-Term Evolution Machine Type Communication (LTE-M) and Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT).
It’s a moment worth celebrating for operators and standards bodies and the countless enterprises whose products and services now rely on LPWAN connectivity. The momentum will continue during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, where the GSMA will host their IoT Summit on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, from 9 a.m.–11:30 a.m. CET. Industry leaders, innovators and technology experts will explore how 5G and emerging connectivity technologies are reshaping the IoT landscape. As the demand for LTE-M and NB-IoT continues to accelerate, so too does the need for seamless geographically extensive coverage.
For us at Semtech (formerly Sierra Wireless), this milestone is especially meaningful. We’ve been part of this journey from the beginning, contributing to the early studies and technical work that shaped today’s LPWAN standards. As Semtech’s Chief Scientist, Gus Vos, put it, “This didn’t happen overnight.” It took vision, persistence and years of engineering across the ecosystem to build the foundation that makes a billion connections possible.
How LTE-M and NB-IoT Solved the IoT Connectivity Challenge
Early cellular networks were not designed for IoT. Traditional LTE served smartphones and high-bandwidth applications but not the millions of low-cost, battery-powered sensors that enterprises needed to deploy. This created a challenge: devices couldn’t achieve multi-year battery life, modules were too expensive for large-scale deployments and the full LTE feature set was overkill for simple use cases.
This is what drew us into 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) discussions starting in 2008. Long before most people heard the term “IoT”, our engineers helped shape LTE-M and NB-IoT into practical, commercially viable technologies. By the time LTE-M and NB-IoT were formally launched in 2017, the groundwork for massive IoT had been laid through years of collaboration, persistence and behind-the-scenes engineering.
From Standard to Scale: The Road to One Billion
Once LTE-M and NB-IoT were officially defined, the next challenge was turning those standards into real, commercially viable products. The early years were promising but imperfect. As Gus Vos explains, the first generation of LTE-M devices were essentially “repainted LTE modules” — functional but not truly optimized for cost or battery life.
That changed quickly. As deployments grew and operators aligned on GSMA’s recommended feature sets and deployment guides, the technology matured. Semtech launched dedicated LPWAN modules designed specifically for IoT, beginning with the HL78 module series and evolving into the HL79 modules, delivering:
- Dramatically improved battery life
- Lower power consumption
- More cost-efficient design
- Stronger coverage performance in challenging environments
Meanwhile, enterprises began rolling out large-scale projects across smart metering, agriculture, logistics, and asset tracking. Each new deployment sharpened the technology and demonstrated the value of low-power cellular IoT at global scale.
Reaching one billion connections didn’t come from a single breakthrough, but from years of engineering, industry alignment and steady innovation across the ecosystem.
What’s Next: Bringing IoT forward into 6G
As the industry looks ahead to 6G, cellular IoT will continue to evolve. The next generation of standards is expected to build on everything learned from LTE-M, NB-IoT and 5G, with a strong focus on creating a simpler, more unified foundation for massive IoT.
Gus Vos highlights three important themes shaping early 6G discussions:
1. One Unified IoT Standard: Rather than splitting functionality across multiple low-power technologies, 6G is expected to consolidate capabilities into a single, more robust IoT framework. This helps reduce fragmentation and makes global deployments easier for enterprises.
2. Day-One Global Support: A key lesson from earlier standards is the importance of ensuring that IoT features are standardized and supported by operators from the start. Retrofitting IoT features leads to technical compromises and inefficiencies. Built-in, early support will make it easier for devices to roam, scale and operate anywhere in the world.
3. More Capable Devices that Fit Smoothly into the Network: 6G aims to enable more performant, cost-competitive and power-efficient IoT devices without slowing down the network or competing with high-bandwidth traffic. Gus describes this as ensuring that “mopeds and Ferraris can share the same road” without getting in each other’s way.
These early directions reflect a broader industry trend: IoT is moving toward greater efficiency, broader applicability and more predictable global behavior. Semtech participates in these forward-looking standards discussions, helping shape what the next generation of cellular IoT will look like while ensuring future products align with where the industry is heading.
A Moment to Celebrate and a Foundation for the Future
The GSMA’s celebration of one billion cellular LPWAN connections marks an important moment for the entire IoT ecosystem. It reflects years of steady progress, shared problem-solving and close collaboration across operators, standards bodies, device makers, and solution providers.
For enterprises, the milestone proves that low-power cellular connectivity has reached global scale. From smart utilities to logistics, healthcare and agriculture, LTE-M and NB-IoT now offer the maturity, stability and reach needed to support the next generation of connected products.
As the industry moves toward 6G and begins shaping what the next decade of IoT will look like, Semtech continues to build on the work that began years ago as Sierra Wireless. In an ever-changing industry where companies come and go, our focus remains the same: providing the stable, future-ready connectivity enterprises depend on.
The foundation for the next billion IoT connections is already being built. Talk to our team to see how Semtech’s proven technology can support your roadmap or join us at the IoT Summit during Mobile World Congress to continue the conversation and celebrate this important industry milestone. Register for the summit here.
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