Low power wide area solutions to hit MWC16
The first live demonstrations of low power wide area (LPWA) solutions in licensed spectrum will be on display at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the GSMA announced today. Visitors will experience a diverse range of solutions underpinned by three complementary technology standards known as Narrow Band Internet of Things (IoT) (NB-IoT), Extended Coverage EGPRS (EC-EGPRS) and LTE Machine Type Communication (Cat-M).
The GSMA’s Mobile IoT Initiative has aligned the mobile industry behind these standards, which have been accepted by 3GPP for Release 13.
LPWA networks are designed for M2M applications that have low data rates, require long battery lives and operate unattended for long periods of time, often in remote locations. They are expected to be used for a wide variety of applications such as industrial asset tracking, safety monitoring, water and gas metering, smart grids, city parking, vending machines and city lighting.
The availability of commercial solutions in 2016 will remove market fragmentation, provide market reassurance and help to accelerate the IoT through the availability of very low cost, mobile operator-connected devices, claimed the GSMA.
Said Alex Sinclair, CTO, GSMA: “LPWA is an emerging, high growth area of the Internet of Things but it requires common, global standards in licensed spectrum in order for it to scale effectively and deliver secure, reliable and robust performance. With high quality managed networks, mobile operators are well placed to deliver these industry standard solutions which offer customers a clear choice and we are excited to see the industry move so quickly to provide commercial solutions.”
The Mobile IoT Initiative is supported by 30 of the world’s leading mobile operators, OEMs, chipset, module and infrastructure companies, and is designed to accelerate the commercial availability of LPWA solutions in licensed spectrum.
There are already a number of commercial trials and pilots of LPWA solutions underway around the world; however, at Mobile World Congress visitors will be amongst the first to try them out for themselves.
