Ericsson and Orange trial IoT over GSM, LTE

BANGALORE, INDIA: In a bid to improve indoor coverage, reduce IoT device cost and extend battery life, Ericsson and Orange are launching world’s first trial for Internet of Things (IoT) over LTE and GSM.

IoT is a rapidly growing segment and, according to the Ericsson Mobility Report, there will be 28 billion connected devices by 2021.

Improved indoor coverage: The world-first EC-GSM (extended coverage) trial will be conducted in France by using the 900 MHz band, with the aim to enhance device reachability by up to 20dB or a seven-fold improvement in the range of low-rate applications.

This extends the global coverage of GSM in Europe and Africa to reach deep indoor basements where many smart meters are installed, or remote areas in which sensors are deployed for agriculture or infrastructure monitoring use cases.

Reduced IoT device cost: the LTE IoT trial in partnership with Sequans will take place using  low-cost, low-complexity devices with one receive antenna (instead of two), and half-duplex FDD. This simplifies the device hardware architecture and reduces expensive duplex filters, allowing for 60 percent cost reduction in comparison with existing LTE Cat 4.

Another advantage of this technology is enablement by software upgrades of existing cellular networks, providing large scale IoT deployments.

Extended battery life: In partnership with Sequans, Ericsson will also demonstrate energy efficiency over GSM and LTE networks with power saving mode (PSM) technology.

The PSM feature is applicable to both GSM and LTE, and supported by Evolved Packet Core (EPC). It enables extended battery life of communication modules such as sensors by up to 10 years.

Thomas Noren, Vice President and Head, Radio Product Management, Ericsson, said, “IoT is an emerging market and presents great business potential for mobile operators. Ericsson is providing the software-upgrade-only solution to accelerate cellular network for IoT, allowing operators to leverage their infrastructure investments in order to quickly capture new business opportunities now and in the future with 5G.”

Cellular networks optimized for IoT will be operational in 2017.