  The Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a cellular access technology
developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to provide wide
area connectivity for the Internet of Things. Since its introduction in 3GPP
Release 13, NB-IoT has in a few years achieved a remarkable market presence and
is currently providing coverage in close to 100 countries. To further extend
the reach of NB-IoT and to connect the unconnected, 3GPP Release 17 will study
the feasibility of adapting NB-IoT to support non-terrestrial networks (NTNs).
In this article, we review the fundamentals of NB-IoT and NTN and explain how
NB-IoT can be adapted to support satellite communication through a minimal set
of modifications.
