In the chart here LTE-Advanced is the technology used for most mobile devices in the world. This cellular technology provides the distance that developers want, but has battery life in the range of days with a high cost. New cellular technologies based on 4G have emerged in response to the requirements of embedded developers. These new technologies attempt to address some of the drawbacks of traditional cellular technology as previously discussed. LTE CAT-1 was the first variant and attempted to reduce the speed or bandwidth in exchange for longer battery life. While battery life was successfully improved the cost remained higher. CAT-M and NB-IoT are two different types of 4G LTE technology that have been deployed in the last two years. With these technologies, Cellular can now achieve battery life into the range of years, all at data plans costing as little as $5 per month. CAT-M and NB-IoT are also able to reduce the power consumption of Cellular by allowing IoT devices to remain in sleep mode for extended periods of time and reconnecting to the cellular network within seconds versus minutes. These networks accomplish this optimization by using unlicensed and unused guard band frequencies between channels of licensed Cellular spectrum that allow high priced voice calls to coexist with data being sent by IoT devices. CAT-M1 and LTE CAT-NB1 (NB-IoT) are well suited for remote or mobile applications that are not always near a fixed Internet connection like Ethernet or Wi-Fi. Typical applications include asset tracking, wearables, parking meters, agriculture monitors, and city infrastructures. CAT-M1 is best suited for IoT applications requiring high reliability and low latency. CAT-M1 supports authentication, credentialing, and encryption, and most North American carriers have worked to deploy CAT-M1 first. NB-IoT does not support hand offs between cell towers while the device is in the connected state; instead, devices can only select and connect to a cell tower when the device connection is idle. With this mobility restriction, NB-IoT is better suited for devices and sensors that transmit data infrequently, such as those that remain in a sleep or idle mode and only periodically connect to a cell tower. Unlike CAT-M1, NB-IoT does not support voice calls. Cellular carriers in Europe have primarily deployed NB-IoT networks first. To address the need for a globally available CAT-M and CAT-NB, Renesas has created a reference design solution that works for CAT-M and NB-IoT on the same hardware.