The Release 1.1 specification adds support for eMTC-U and NB-IoT-U, as well as support for additional spectrum bands
The MulteFire Alliance announced the completion of its Release 1.1 specification that is optimized for the internet of things.
Adding support for eMTC-U for moderate data-rate applications in unlicensed spectrum and narrowband applications in unlicensed spectrum, as well as support for additional spectrum bands, the Release 1.1 specification delivers “more robust wireless network capabilities for industrial IoT and enterprises to meet their specific requirements for performance, latency, security and mobility,” the alliance said.
“The Release 1.1 technical specification is a significant achievement offering an optimized specification for IoT and support for additional spectrum bands,” said Mazen Chmaytelli, president of MulteFire Alliance. “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.”
“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,” said Asimakis Kokkos, who chairs the alliance’s technical specification group and is head of industry environment strategy at Nokia. “MulteFire 1.1 takes the potential of this technology even 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:
-Additional spectrum bands focusing on IoT and expanded IoT services with low-power wide-area support.
-Adds eMTC-U support for moderate data-rate applications in the global 2.4 GHz unlicensed band.
-Adds NB-IoT-U support for narrowband applications in the regional 800/900 MHz unlicensed bands.
-Adds MulteFire 1.9 GHz support (for the unlicensed part in 3GPP defined Band 39), also known as sXGP in Japan, which is ready for commercial deployment in Japan with support from the XGP Forum and an ecosystem of TD-LTE devices in place that support Band 39 today.
-Enhanced MulteFire 1.0 broadband services in the 5 GHz unlicensed band.
-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.
-Faster uplink data transmissions.
-Improved downlink coverage with Wideband Coverage Enhancements (WCE).
-Self-organizing networks (SON) capabilities.
