What Are LTE Frequency Bands?
LTE frequency bands are the specific slices of licensed radio spectrum (identified by number, e.g. Band 3, Band 20, Band 28) that carriers use to operate their networks. Different countries — and often different carriers within the same country — are licensed to operate on different band combinations. A cellular modem must support the specific band a network is using at a given location in order to connect at all.
Why Band Compatibility Matters for Deployment
For GPS tracker deployments spanning multiple countries or carriers, band compatibility is a hard technical requirement, not a nice-to-have — a device with excellent battery life and a well-designed antenna will still fail to connect if its modem doesn't support any band the local network operates on. This is why hardware selection for multi-region fleets should start with a band-compatibility check, not just a technology-type check (LTE-M vs. NB-IoT vs. Cat 1 bis).
Regional Band Patterns — General Concepts
Band allocation varies by region and changes over time as carriers refarm spectrum, so this article does not publish a fixed, all-regions band table — treat any such table as a snapshot that can go stale. As general concepts:
- Some bands are widely reused across many countries and carriers, making them useful defaults for broad-coverage hardware.
- Other bands are more region- or carrier-specific, and hardware intended for that specific market is typically tuned accordingly.
- 4G LTE Cat 1 bis modems generally support a broader multi-band set than narrower LPWAN (LTE-M/NB-IoT) modems, which is part of why Cat 1 bis is often chosen for markets with less mature LTE-M/NB-IoT rollout — see our cellular technology comparison for the tradeoffs.
Checking Band Support on Mictrack Products
The authoritative source for which bands a specific Mictrack model supports is that model's own datasheet and catalog, available on each product page and in the Downloads section — for example MT700 and MT700L. Always confirm current band support directly against the datasheet for your specific model and hardware revision rather than a general reference article.
Confirming Compatibility Before You Deploy
Before a multi-region rollout, confirm with your carrier or IoT SIM provider which bands are active at each deployment location, then cross-check against the specific product datasheet. For deployments spanning several countries, contact our engineering team — we can help match hardware to your specific regional footprint.
