  5G NB-IoT is seen as a key technology for providing truly ubiquitous, global
5G coverage (1.000.000 devices/km2) for machine type communications in the
internet of things. A non-terrestrial network (NTN) variant of NB-IoT is being
standardized in the 3GPP, which along with inexpensive and non-complex
chip-sets enables the production of competitively priced IoT devices with truly
global coverage. NB-IoT allows for narrowband single carrier transmissions in
the uplink, which improves the uplink link-budget by as much as 16.8 dB over
the 180 [kHz] downlink. This allows for a long range sufficient for ground to
low earth orbit (LEO) communication without the need for complex and expensive
antennas in the IoT devices. In this paper the feasibility of 5G NB-IoT in the
context of low-density constellations of small-satellites carrying
base-stations in LEO is analyzed and required adaptations to NB-IoT are
discussed.
