Ericsson enlists Verizon, AT&T for work on cellular LPWA for IoT

A day after Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) detailed its current work with AT&T (NYSE: T) in furthering cellular low power wide area (LPWA) solutions for large-scale IoT deployments, Ericsson has announced it's also partnering with Verizon (NYSE: VZ) on the technology.

Ericsson -- which has been collaborating with Verizon on IoT trials since 2014 -- will engage in joint trials with Verizon throughout 2016, focusing on live network testing for IoT use cases.

"We're committed to simplifying IoT and have introduced a developer platform - ThingSpace - and new network advancements that do just that. Ericsson's new software will enable us to expand our coverage of low-cost IoT devices while supporting years of battery life," Adam Koeppe, VP of Network Technology and Planning at Verizon, said in a statement.

Ericsson's new network software, Networks Software 17A, is built for more flexible deployment, low total cost of ownership and high reliability and security. The software puts Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) and LTE Machine type communication (LTE-M) on top of existing LTE infrastructure to gain up to 20 dB coverage improvement and more than 10 years of IoT device battery life.

With the two largest U.S. mobile operators behind it, Ericsson is strengthening its push for cellular LPWA for IoT as LPWA technologies like SigFox and LoRa, which is currently in trials with Orange in France, work toward establishing alternative standards that operate over unlicensed spectrum.

For more:
- see this Ericsson release

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