A great vision: one world, one module

From fleet management to goods or people localisation, from preventive maintenance of industrial machinery to furnishing houses and apartments, buildings, smart technology power supplies, their potential is huge.

And the technologies are also ready for the market. Mobile network operators (MNOs) and solution providers have a strong and diverse offering. MNOs are accelerating their launches of licensed LPWA mobile networks, such as NB-IoT (LTE Cat NB1) and LTE Cat M1 , and the required hardware is declining. By the end of 2018 licensed LPWA networks will probably use most areas in the US, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Because they are standardised, licensed LPWA technologies provide the most reliable communication solution for worldwide IoT applications. For example, the broad availability of NB-IoT means you can use the same underlying technology for applications that target markets around the world. The conclusion of roaming agreements between operators and regions will facilitate the introduction of applications that cross national or even continental borders. And because operators need to meet service level agreements, they themselves have a vested interest in ensuring the networks are reliable.

Fragmentation in the ecosystem
But if you've ever started developing a global application, then you know you're dealing with a very fragmented technological, commercial, and regulatory landscape in no time. This starts with different regional priorities for the first rollouts of LPWA technology. North America first relied on LTE Cat M1 and NB-IoT shortly thereafter, while NB-IoT was preferred in Asia and Europe, with LTE Cat M1 following suit.

In addition, the spectrum within a country or region is allocated extremely fragmented over dozens of frequency bands. One way to get around this is to manage multiple product variants around the world. While this may address network fragmentation from a regional perspective, it falls short of the tremendous efficiencies of a global solution that enables connectivity virtually anywhere, anytime, and with longer runtimes.

And all this is done before you tackle the certification marathon of your device for local markets.

Optimise and simplify
At u-blox it plays a part to simplify your work. To do this, it is developing mobile modules that take a giant leap forward towards the realisation of the vision: one world, one module. With the ultra-compact LTE Cat M1, NB-IoT and EGPRS modules from the u-blox SARA-R4 / N4 series you can reset the module configuration to zero hour. Hour zero here means that configuration decisions can be postponed to the last moment, or even taken sometime in the future. These include: enabling and disabling LTE tapes, selecting radio access technology as either a single or preferred mode, selecting from an available catalogue of pre-approved MNO profiles, adding new MNO profiles without changing the host software, or performing updates with uFOTA ,

Developing successful LPWA solutions for global markets requires a flexible hardware and software solution that you can rely on wherever your devices are implemented. With the world map coverage improving month by month and the increasing competition of MNOs with more and more advantageous offers, real-time customisation would be a great advantage. Then it would be easier to turn your idea into a module that works around the world.

Guest blog written by Patty Felts, Principal Product Manager, Cellular Product Center, u-blox.

Courtesy of u-blox.