DISTRIBUTECH 2024: Nordic Semiconductor Unveils the Power of DECT NR+ for Private Networks

The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its industrial counterpart (IIoT) has seamlessly integrated technology into our daily lives, from our homes and cars to factories. This integration largely relies on wireless communication technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular networks, as well as ultra-wideband, LoRa, Sigfox, and ISM.

With our reliance on wireless data communication growing exponentially, the need for dependable wireless connectivity now spans various aspects of life and work, including in homes, cars, workplaces, shops, and more. This is where Nordic Semiconductor‘s and Wirepas‘ DECT NR+ enters the landscape. Thanks to its non-cellular nature, it supports private networks without the need for base stations or service provider infrastructure. And because it operates in the globally available 1.9GHz license-exempt spectrum, DECT NR+ reduces the regulatory and financial barriers to deployment.

At the show floor of DISTRIBUTECH 2024, MarketScale spoke to K. Helmut Lord, Field Application Engineer at Nordic Semiconductor. Held in Orlando, the four-day event showcased the ground-breaking technologies, solutions, and trends in electricity distribution and grid modernization.

Helmut’s Thoughts

“We see a lot of customers in a variety of industries related to metering, either from a cellular perspective or from a non-cellular perspective, so we have customers in Nordic countries right now using our technology for devices in a non-cellular sort of application meshing together.

I’m Helmut Lord, I’m a Field Application Engineer for Nordic Semiconductor. Specifically, I’m based in the southeast, so Florida, Alabama, all the way up to North Carolina is the territory I cover. Here, we’re at Distributech with our partner Wirepas in a joint booth. Wirepas is a provider of a cellular mesh network, excuse me, non-cellular mesh network using some 5G standards. The new technology we’re presenting today is something called DECT NR+.”

Broadening Connectivity with DECT NR+

“We see a lot of customers in a variety of industries related to metering, either from a cellular perspective or from a non-cellular perspective. So, we have customers in Nordic countries right now using our technology for devices in a non-cellular sort of application meshing together.

Recently, there was a pretty significant cellular outage. If you weren’t operating with a carrier, you may be able to weather some of those things because you’re managing your own network. Wirepas has a customer using their mesh technology in an area where cell coverage may not be great, but they get high reliability both in uplink and downlink because they’re able to leverage that mesh technology.”

Cost-Saving Benefits

“The great thing about our wireless mesh technology now, the DECT NR+, is that it’s unlicensed, so from that perspective, you may be able to save on your certification costs because all you have to do is FCC. If you want to work with a cellular carrier, also our system and packages, our 91 series and our F9161 is our newest part in that series. Since it’s a SIP, the certification costs are also lower just because you have all those components that you have to go through certification with, so your crystals and your passives as well as your modem and the microcontroller in it are all in a SIP pre-certified by us.”

Article written by MarketScale.