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GE Digital, Nokia, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced that the companies have demonstrated a private LTE network for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market; meshing together each company’s platforms and technologies. In addition, the companies have announced plans to further research and conduct live field trials throughout 2017 based on this demonstration, designed to help to advance the digitization of industrial processes.
Industrial companies often have local connectivity needs and operate in remote locations or temporary sites, such as mines, power plants, offshore oil platforms, factories, warehouses, or ports, where connectivity for these environments can be challenging. A standalone LTE network to serve devices and users within a localized area can help improve performance and reliability for these industrial settings.
Private LTE-based networks utilize LTE-based technologies in shared/unlicensed/dedicated-licensed spectrum. This demonstration utilizes LTE-TDD in the US 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band also known as Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). With MulteFire, unlicensed spectrum bands can be used to create private LTE-based networks, such as the 5 GHz band available globally.
As part of the collaboration and technology demonstration, Qualcomm Technologies will provide the wireless technology and device chipsets. Nokia will be providing base station infrastructure, plus the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud service to run the network as an on demand private network. GE is integrating these new types of connectivity into its Predix platform, which is an open-architecture operating system for the Industrial Internet, to help industrial companies better manage their assets and operations, often found far from the public communications networks.
Further, the agreements between the parties include the installation of a private LTE network at GE Digital’s headquarters in San Ramon, Calif., which GE will use to further develop its Predix platform.
Private LTE-based networks will help to enable industries and enterprises to own and manage their own LTE network without requiring licensed spectrum and still leverage the performance from LTE with a roadmap to 5G. Private LTE-based networks also offer the ability to customize the dedicated LTE network for the company’s specific applications, such as helping to optimize for capacity, quality-of-service, or guaranteed latencies.
Keywords: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), LTE-based Network, Wireless Technology, ARC Advisory Group.