What is 5G NR-Light, a.k.a. RedCap, and how will it accelerate the growth of the connected intelligent edge?

5G is envisioned and being designed to serve an unprecedented range of capabilities with a single global standard. With enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive IoT (mIoT), and mission-critical IoT, the three pillars of 5G represent extremes in performance and associated complexity. For massive IoT services, narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) and enhanced machine type communication (eMTC) devices prioritize low power consumption and the lowest complexity for wide-area deployments (LPWA), while enhanced ultra-reliable, low-latency communication (eURLLC) devices deliver on the most stringent use case requirements in industry. But there exists an opportunity to address a broad range of mid-tier applications more efficiently, with capabilities between these extremes.

In 5G NR Release 17, 3GPP introduced a new tier of reduced capability (RedCap) devices, also known as NR-Light. It is a new device platform that bridges the capability and complexity gap between the extremes in 5G today with an optimized design for mid-tier use cases. Read more on this now.