3GPP, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, publishes the specifications that mobile networks and devices implement, organized in numbered releases. For IoT the relevant work started with NB-IoT and LTE-M, two low-power modes that let small devices use existing cellular infrastructure for years on a battery, and continued with 5G RedCap, a reduced-capability 5G profile for mid-tier devices such as wearables and industrial sensors.
The value of 3GPP standards is global scale: a certified module can attach to networks in many countries with carrier-grade security and managed roaming. The trade-off is that cellular IoT depends on operators deploying the specific features, so support for a given release varies by region. Standards from 3GPP sit alongside the commercial work of the GSMA on SIM and eSIM.
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