The CAT-1 LTE modem was initially defined in 2008 as a low-cost, low-power alternative to connect IoT devices that needed to transfer limited amounts of data. However, vendors and network providers at that time focused on higher throughput. The actual device introduction started about five or six years later.
In 2016, eight years after the initial CAT-1 definition, CAT-1bis was finalized in 3GPP release 13. The new protocol was expected to further reduce the cost of the modem and simplify the device by removing the second antenna.
