MulteFire announces industrial IoT network specification
The MulteFire Alliance announced the completion of its Release 1.1 specification that is optimised for IoT.
MulteFire Alliance president Mazen Chmaytelli says, "The Release 1.1 Technical Specification is a significant achievement offering an optimised specification for IoT and support for additional spectrum bands.
"This milestone could not have been reached without the dedication and commitment of the Technical Specification Group members who have worked tirelessly to evolve MulteFire technology to meet the needs of industrial IoT and enterprise.
Adding support for eMTC-U and NB-IoT-U, as well as support for additional spectrum bands, the Release 1.1 specification aims to deliver robust wireless network capabilities for Industrial IoT and enterprises so that they can meet their specific requirements for performance, latency, security and mobility.
Nokia head of industry environment strategy Asimakis Kokkos says, "MulteFire 1.0 is a novel technology that was designed to create new wireless networks by operating LTE-based technology standalone in unlicensed or shared spectrum bands.
"MulteFire 1.1 takes the potential of this technology further by improving on the performance of MulteFire 1.0 for the global 5 GHz unlicensed band, and by adding new capabilities and support for additional spectrum bands.
The MulteFire Release 1.1 specification includes the following features:
1. Added Additional Spectrum Bands Focusing on IoT and Expanded IoT Services with Low Power Wide Area Support.
2. Adds eMTC-U support for moderate data rate applications in the global 2.4 GHz unlicensed band.
3. Adds NB-IoT-U support for narrowband applications in the regional 800/900 MHz unlicensed bands.
4. Delivers more robust mobility in up to 50 km/h speeds with the addition of Autonomous UE Mobility (AUM) which performs autonomous handover without explicit network command.
5. Allows for faster uplink data transmissions with Grant-less Uplink (GUL), whereby the UE can start transmitting immediately.
6. Supports improved downlink coverage with Wideband Coverage Enhancements (WCE)
