MULTITECH LEVERAGES TELIT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO SIMPLIFY LTE FOR THE INTERNET OF THINGS

MULTITECH UTILIZES TELIT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO SIMPLIFY LTE FOR THE INTERNET OF THINGS

Deploying LTE technology today gives organizations a mature technology that provides low latency and ample data speeds and capacity for all kinds of IoT apps and services, and guarantees a long operational life for devices.

As mobile carriers evolve their networks to LTE, they’re focusing on opportunities the technology brings to achieve better spectral efficiency and to operate their networks at lower cost and with reduced complexity. For IoT services, the emergence of LTE is both an advantage and a challenge. On one side, the benefits are positive because LTE will be able to better service the needs of more intelligent edge devices with better bandwidth and lower latency but, on the other hand, LTE deployment will see the retirement of 2G networks in many markets.

Organizations, especially those in the M2M market, are highly familiar with 2G technologies which meet the relatively limited bandwidth needs of their less demanding machine-to-machine communications so the shutting down of 2G networks is a significant issue that will ultimately be addressed by the variations of low power radio technologies coming to market. MultiTech has been a leader in LPWA to address this growing need. Whether customers choose LTE CAT-1 or any other arriving standard from 3GPP or otherwise, MultiTech and Telit make transitioning from 2G as painless as possible.

BEYOND THE 2G SUNSET Daniel Quant, the vice president of product management and strategic marketing at MultiTech, which designs, develops and manufactures communications equipment for the industrial internet of things, acknowledges the disruption to the industry that the retirement of 2G networks will cause, but he sees the impact as being relatively straightforward to contain.

“It’s true that 2G is sunsetting in the US and other markets but by investing today to upgrade to LTE, companies can avoid later costs which could include device shutdown. Moreover, LTE is a long-term upgrade likely to be available for the lifecycle of IoT devices, which are often required to operate in the field in excess of ten years.”

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LTE MEANS LOW LATENCY LTE, though, represents an exciting opportunity for IoT companies, especially those for whom real-time data is critical to their operations. For example, power grid businesses need to achieve rapid responses in order to manage their operations effectively and deliver against increasingly demanding user expectations. That plays well to LTE’s strengths which include achieving latency of less than 100 milliseconds.

MultiTech is among the device makers that have integrated LTE already. “We’re refreshing our entire portfolio with LTE,” says Quant. “Just over a year ago we implemented Cat-3 LTE using Telit LE910 modules in our SocketModem products, which are end-device certified and approved with AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon for the North America. That has enabled customers with our socket modems to upgrade to LTE with minimal integration complexity, just as the shared footprint and backwards compatibility of the Telit XE910 family has simplified our integration.

“Telit has created a very inclusive family around the XE910 footprint,” he adds. “It’s certainly a big advantage not having to change board and Telit does a good job of designing in multiple options.”

THE CERTIFICATION CHALLENGE A standardized footprint is one benefit both Telit and MultiTech deliver, but organizations are also looking to accelerate the development cycle. One of the greatest barriers to achieving this is the certification and testing process that new devices have to go through. Certification requirements range across connectivity and into electronics, requiring new devices to conform to cellular regulations and a raft of other requirements.

Quant emphasizes the importance of carrier approval and utilizing pre-approved modules where appropriate. MultiTech takes this one step further by delivering enddevice certification to their customers. “The product has been approved by the carriers which means customers don’t need to do any wireless regulatory testing,” he explains, referring to the SocketModem.

Even with the wireless aspects of testing addressed by the carriers, the testing process still remains rigorous and can take many months to complete. “Wireless testing is complex, time consuming and expensive,” Quant says. “It can be a significant barrier for organizations so being able to take a module from Telit and complete the next step for our customers gets themto market quicker and cheaper.”

“Telit has already done the field tests on five or seven networks so we only need to do a sanity test,” says Quant. “We then get a fully approved platform which is important to us and to our customers. With other vendors we felt like we were helping them design the product.”

MultiTech has also implemented LTE in its MultiConnect rCell router range. That product is available with 2G, 3G, CDMA or 4G modules, each of which are within the Telit XE910 family and therefore have the same form factor. The rCell is ideal for classic applications such as kiosks, SOHO environments, oil and gas facilities and some medical appliances, says Quant.

The company has another LTE product called MultiConnect Cell going through the certification process. This product is similar to the MultiConnect rCell series but has a serial interface to cellular. “We expect take up from the solar panels and medical products markets,” says Quant. “There is a trend to sell energy back to the grid from solar panel owners and this product is already in use by some of the biggest names in that industry. A device that costs about $100 and can be plugged in with USB connectivity and a couple of antennas positioned on a box and that has LTE for backhaul will be very attractive to providers who want electricity from a customer’s panels.”

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LIVE LONG AND PROSPER Such applications require a long lifespan for hardware and Quant is encouraged by Telit’s heritage of building devices for specific industrial requirements. “We really like that Telit is a highly industry-focused company with purpose-built, durable and reliable products that have a long lifecycle,” he says. “In sectors such as the medical industry it often takes a couple of years to get product run rates rolling so we need to be buying a product from people who will not be killing it off for years and years and to come.”

MultiTech has had a long relationship with Telit which extends beyond the basic placement of Telit modules in its products. Approximately three years ago MultiTech began to work with Telit’s IoT Platforms organization in Boca Raton, Florida to place software onto an earlier version of the company’s gateway product to enable simplified deployment.

“With Telit’s deviceWISE, the customer doesn’t have to do a software developer’s job to make the device work in the field. The model is that the technician just does the installation of the device and connects it to a power source and the configuration is done remotely by deviceWISE.” Quant adds that MultiTech has now implemented a complementary software capability into its rCell router which can now be configured equally simply. This functionality was demonstrated at the Embedded World 2016 exhibition.

“From a platform perspective, it’s about taking our embedded products to make them quicker to deploy,” he says. “It’s also about enabling easier scalability with optimisation and control performed by operational groups back in the control centre.

That makes large scale roll-outs faster and more cost effective for customers.”

Telit’s capability to develop systems such as this remote control software is seen as a significant advantage by Quant as LTE comes to market and alternatives to 2G emerge for lower bandwidth applications.

“We have a lot of customers migrating to LTE,” he concludes. “With all that intelligence at the edge the challenge becomes an IoT industry issue and connectivity stops being a limitation. There is big value to bring to customers with LTE and we have a great opportunity to deliver better solutions to our customers using the technology.”

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