Performance Evaluation of Channel Access in NB-Fi Networks

The rapid growth of the Internet of Things gives rise to numerous Low Power Wide Area Network technologies, one of which, NB-Fi technology, has been approved as a Preliminary National Standard of the Russian Federation and is planned for wide application. However, the scientific literature contains very few studies of NB-Fi, and the investigation of the possibilities and potential advantages and disadvantages of NB‑Fi is an open issue. This paper provides a tutorial of the NB-Fi protocol with a focus on channel access methods. Also, the paper evaluates how the packet loss rate and delay depend on the network load, points out the factors that can reduce the protocol efficiency, and proposes some approaches to improve the NB-Fi network performance.