Please believe that a complete 5G system includes three main functions: eMBB (enhanced mobile broadband), URLLC (ultra-reliable low-latency communication) and mMTC (massive machine type communication). The characteristics of DECT-2020NR provide a good solution to the challenges posed by URLLC and mMTC, which is why the ITU prefers this standard.

DECT-2020NR is a non-mobile radio and license-free radio standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standardization Institute (ETSI) and became one of the 5G standards recommended by the ITU IMT-2020 technology in October this year. Use cases and wireless applications provide a strong technical foundation. The application of this technology is no longer limited to cordless phones, but covers audio streaming, professional audio, consumer, industrial Internet of Things and more. At the same time, since DECT-2020NR operates on the unlicensed 1.9GHz frequency band, the cost of frequency band lease does not need to be considered when building the network. Since 1.9GHz is universal in the world, related products only need to use one frequency band and one BOM, avoiding the release of different versions of hardware for different regions.

DECT-2020NR supports frequency bands/ETSI includes 1.9GHz frequency band, DECT-2020NR also supports 17 frequency bands below 6GHz, and supports a maximum bandwidth of 221MHz to further improve latency and performance in the future.

5G advantage without mobile phone

Cell-free 5G is based on a completely different concept than cellular 5G, and the biggest difference between non-cellular 5G is that its biggest advantage is a decentralized network. In a non-cellular 5G network, each device can be regarded as a node, and each device can be turned into a router. The cost of deploying a large number of base stations. Both the cost and the carbon footprint are much lower relative to the deployment of cellular networks. What benefits do these features bring? First, the device can automatically find the most suitable path, and the process of adding a new device to the network routing can also be completed automatically; network, greatly reducing maintenance costs. Cell-free 5G is also beneficial to the construction of private networks. Traditional enterprise self-built 5G private networks need to bear high deployment and spectrum licensing costs, and require long-term maintenance work in the later stage, which is difficult for 5G private networks built by operators.

MTC and URLLC.

At this point, you might be asking, why is this technology implicated in 5G? Please believe that a complete 5G system includes three main functions: eMBB (enhanced mobile broadband), URLLC (ultra-reliable low-latency communication) and mMTC (massive machine type communication). The characteristics of DECT-2020NR provide a good solution to the challenges posed by URLLC and mMTC, which is why the ITU prefers this standard. Although DECT-2020 is still in the early stages of development, it is expected to fill the wireless IoT gap in the mMTC space. In many mMTC applications, the failure of a single device can be fatal and potentially put automated processes or critical infrastructure at risk, such as self-driving cars in factories, high-speed robots operating alongside operators, and more.

As one of the contributors to the DECT-2020NR standard, IEEENordic Semiconductor has also begun to deploy products that support the standard in terms of delay performance under different device densities/IEEENordic Semiconductor. According to Nordic, existing wireless IoT technologies typically perform below 100kbps and latency below 10s in mMTC applications (1 million devices per square kilometer). It can also be seen from the above figure that when the device density continues to increase, IoT technologies such as NB-IoT and LTE-M cannot be used normally in time. Nordic's first DECT-2020NR solution is based on the nRF91 series, with a test speed of 3Mbps and a latency of 1ms. This obvious gap greatly reduces the time of information transmission, which not only ensures the reliability and security of modern transmission, but also avoids the loss caused by the delay of data transmission, which is the core of the Industrial Internet of Things and the security of the Internet of Things. Energy efficiency is another key parameter in mMTC applications, i.e., at higher device densities, the energy efficiency of wireless communication decreases due to large interference. However, a study by a Finnish university found that at the same radio power, the DECT-2020NR system was 60 percent more energy efficient than conventional radio waves.

summary

While non-cellular 5G like DECT-2020NR looks promising, its role does not replace cellular technology. DECT-2020NR is mainly used to build a wireless neighborhood network, and to really expand the coverage, we must do a good job of interworking with the WAN. DECT-2020NR is also the reason why the 3GPP 5G standard is compatible. Only through the interoperability of the two can the advantages of the wireless Internet of Things be fully utilized.