Nokia says it has conducted the first trial in Korea of low powered LTE technology designed for IoT and for communication with devices that can run for a decade on a single battery.
The over-the-air trial was conducted in a test bed in SK Telecom’s network technology R&D center, using Nokia’s Flexi Multiradio 10 base station and IoT devices provided by GCT Semiconductor.
According to Nokia, “Low power IoT technology streamlines device operation to essential capabilities, and switches to power saving mode when there is no data transmission needed, thus enabling significant reduction in power consumption. … With power saving mode activated, location-tracking devices, or data-collection devices that monitor water or gas usage, are able to run for more than a decade without power supply or battery replacement.”
Jin-hyo Park, senior vice president and head of network technology at SK Telecom’s R&D centre, SK Telecom, said: “With this trial, we have successfully verified the capabilities of our IoT technology in resolving challenges posed by power supply and inefficient battery use, which are obstructing the widespread adoption of IoT devices.”
Andrew Cope, head of Korea for Nokia Networks, said the trial underlined Nokia’s focus on setting the platform for the global adoption of LTE as a technology-of-choice for IoT, evolving to NB-LTE for IoT in the future.
Nokia is pushing for variants of LTE to become the standard for IoT communications. Earlier this month it claimed to be promoting industry collaboration on IoT standards, but LPWAN was not on its agenda. SK Telecom is also working with Ericsson on LTE for IoT but is hedging its bets. It joined the LoRa Alliance in July.
