LPWAN news: RPMA gets hardware partner, Senet’s LoRa adds security

The two companies have agreed that u-blox will develop and manufacture products supporting RPMA technology. RPMA is a low-power wide-area channel access method used exclusively for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication for the internet of things. RPMA utilizes the globally available 2.4 GHz ISM band, so one radio module can serve applications throughout the world. The u-blox modules feature extended temperature range and will allow for simple integration of positioning services.

“U-blox is highly regarded in the wireless module market, and this partnership will open a range of possibilities for our technology,” said John Horn, CEO of Ingenu.  “Ingenu’s collaboration with u-blox will further the success we have realized in the IoT space, and will provide our valuable partners with significant advantages to develop solutions based on RPMA technology.”

U‑blox develops and markets wireless modules and semiconductors for the automotive, industrial and consumer markets. u-blox uses a “nested” form factor, which allows customers to maintain software continuity to easily upgrade their products with each new generation of modules, according to Ingenu. U-blox, like Ingenu, is focused on connecting devices to the internet of things and optimizing applications for machine-type communications.

“The demand for low-power, wide-area network technologies is growing across the globe,” said Andreas Thiel, executive vice president and co-founder of u-blox.  “We believe that Ingenu has superior technology to support growth of unlicensed spectrum technologies, and we are looking forward to a long-term partnership to address the needs of this market, while continuing to maintain our leadership position in developing products for the licensed spectrum.”

The first RPMA modules are expected to launch in Q4 2016.

“They [u-blox] will bring an element of quality and scale to the products we haven’t had in the past,” said Landon Garner, chief marketing officer at Ingenu, in an exclusive interview with Industrial IoT 5G. “We have been so integrated into the hardware business ourselves. Worked with hardware manufacturers, even did in-house hardware, it’s an expensive proposition. Cost benefits will be a huge part to achieve scale on a global basis.”

Senet partners with Gemalto for added security

Senet, the only North American provider of public low-power wide-area networks for LoRa-based internet of things applications, today announced an IoT technology partnership with Gemalto, a digital security company, to increase the level of security for its LoRaWAN connected devices.

The collaboration between the two companies will provide the integration of Senet’s open, standards-based network with the Gemalto Trusted Key Manager product. According to Senet, this will provide IoT solution providers and enterprises desiring to use LPWAN technology an easy to integrate end-to-end offering for key provisioning, authentication and security for devices connecting to LoRa-based networks.

 

The Trusted Key Manager leverages Gemalto security best practices and hardware tamper resistance for key generation and storage. It is highlighted by  two critical features for global IoT deployments:

“The integration between Gemalto’s world-class security and identity management offering and Senet’s leading LPWAN IoT network clearly demonstrates our commitment, and that of the LoRa Alliance, to continue to provide and improve on the degree of protection for connected devices in IoT deployments,” said Will Yapp, VP of Business Development for Senet. “As the leading LPWAN service provider in North America, we take device security very seriously. Gemalto provided the broadest and most complete offering to supply the highest level of security possible to our customers.”