Season 4 of IoT Unplugged returned with a bang as the first episode looked at the future of cellular connectivity, bringing insights from Sabrina Bochen, Director, Product Planning and Marketing at u-blox.
Bochen highlighted there had been substantial growth in the cellular market, particularly in the automotive and industrial sectors, which are big markets for u-blox. She noted that they had witnessed “tepid growth” in recent years owing to the Covid-related supply chain crisis, but that they expected this to pick up.
A key connectivity challenge that companies have faced is the migration over to newer technologies, Bochen shared, which have included LPWAN such as LTE-M and NB-IoT. More recently, this challenge has included migrating over to 5G.
“There has been this expectation to migrate to 5G where the standards so far have been more consumer-focused, or for applications with a high data rate. If you’re looking at the vast majority of IoT applications, they are not 5G connected yet,” said Bochen.
Another topic of discussion within the episode was satellite communications and satellite IoT, which was facilitated by 3GPP’s Release 17, introduced to standardise interoperability of terrestrial and non-terrestrial (NTN) networks. Previously, satellite IoT connectivity was expensive and limited to high-value solutions, but this standard has helped to reduce costs and enable better interoperability, and it is expected it will drive mass adoption.
The launch of u-blox’s 3GPP Release 17-compliant module demonstrated how the company is responding to the growth in NTN connectivity, as well as the use cases it opens up.
Looking ahead, Bochen said she believed satellite connectivity will become increasingly important, with demand emerging for solutions that provide satellite connectivity as a backup in case of network outages.
To hear more from Sabrina Bochen and her insights on cellular connectivity, tune into the full podcast episode available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and at the link below.
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