“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, 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, chair, Technical Specification Group, MulteFire Alliance and head of Industry Environment Strategy, 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.”
Specification Highlights
The MulteFire Release 1.1 specification includes the following features:
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Added 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 Global 5 GHz Unlicensed Band
- Delivers 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
- Allows for faster uplink data transmissions with Grant-less Uplink (GUL), whereby the UE can start transmitting immediately
- Supports improved downlink coverage with Wideband Coverage Enhancements (WCE)
- Adds Self-Organizing Networks (SON) capabilities
A new white paper, Release 1.1 Technical Overview, provides more details and is available to download at www.MulteFire.org/white-papers.
The Release 1.1 specification will be published to MulteFire Alliance members in January 2019 and will be made available for download by anyone with an interest in MulteFire technology by mid-year. For information on joining the MulteFire Alliance, visit www.MulteFire.org/join.
About the MulteFire Alliance
The MulteFire Alliance is an international association dedicated to building a global ecosystem in support of the common interests of members, developers and users in the application of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and next-generation mobile cellular technology, such as 5G New Radio, in configurations that use unlicensed or shared radio spectrum. For more information about MulteFire, its benefits, or how to become a member of the MulteFire Alliance, visit www.multefire.org.