ZTE Corporation, has become an official member of the board of directors of the LoRa® Alliance.
As a board member, ZTE will work together with other members to boost the development of LoRa technologies worldwide in deployment and in the industrial chain of low-power wide-area network (LPWAN). Mr. Liu Jianye, general manager for Energy and IoT Innovation at ZTE, will serve as ZTE’s representative on the board.
Prior to joining the board, ZTE, together with 20 partners, sponsored the China LoRa Application Alliance (CLAA). The CLAA, as the leader of China’s carrier-class LoRa industrial chain, will help promote the innovative application of LoRa technologies in all industries, develop LoRa standards and specifications, and build LoRa application platforms for technical communication, solution validation, marketing cooperation, resource integration, and innovation and incubation.
In just four months of operation, CLAA has recruited more than 40 full members and many IoT companies have submitted applications to join the alliance. Within CLAA, ZTE has issued carrier-class CLAA specifications regarding the numbering rules, frequency usage, extension of the media access control (MAC) layer and server open interface.
Based on the specifications, CLAA members have developed a full portfolio of CLAA network solutions covering modules, nodes, base stations, network servers, application servers and security servers. At present, the CLAA is building the CLAA Certification Laboratory and developing and validating various CLAA applications.
On January 28, 2016, ZTE signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Semtech at ZTE headquarters in Shenzhen. According to the agreement, both parties will cooperate closely to boost the development of the LPWAN industrial chain. LPWAN technology features low power consumption, broad coverage and low costs, making it suitable for all-around and in-depth IoT deployment in all industries. In a diversified IoT world, multiple types of network technologies need to co-exist to take their respective advantages and boost the exponential growth of IoT applications.
Many large IoT application providers demand dedicated IoT networks, which feature lower cost, lower power consumption, more flexible coverage and independent network control. To meet provider’s demands, the CLAA launched the “Self-Controlled Power + Cloud-Based Integration” LPWAN IoT solution over unlicensed frequency bands, light-weight networks and black-box IoT terminals.
Based on the secure and integrated architecture with bearer and application, and the concept of an independent cloud-based application, the solution can satisfy customers’ demand for dedicated IoT networks through fast, flexible and low-power LPWAN network deployment.
The CLAA’s innovative application platform and the industry chain can also serve narrowband (NB) IoT networks, best suited to operator’s public IoT networks. ZTE supports NB-IoT technologies and also a major contributor to 3GPP NB-IoT standardisation. Additionally, ZTE is taking positive steps to fully realise the commercial use of terminal chips, networks and applications.
As a global communications equipment provider, ZTE is implementing its Mobile Information and Communication Technology (M-ICT) strategy to push the information industry to be fully integrated with all other industries. With over 30 years of technical expertise in the communications industry, ZTE is actively exploring innovative applications and development trends in the IoT industry.
With the purpose of building a carrier-class IoT network which features low cost, low power consumption, broad coverage and multi-service platform, ZTE will lead the industry in innovative breakthroughs in the intelligent, information-based IoT. In the future, ZTE will unite with more partners to build a sustainable carrier-class LPWAN IoT ecosphere for the mutual benefit of all future parties.
The LoRa Alliance is an open, non-profit association of members that believes the internet of things era is now. It was initiated by industry leaders with a mission to standardise Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) being deployed around the world to enable Internet of Things (IoT), machine-to-machine (M2M), and smart city, and industrial applications.
The Alliance members will collaborate to drive the global success of the LoRa protocol (LoRaWAN), by sharing knowledge and experience to guarantee interoperability between operators in one open global standard. For more information, please visit https://www.lora-alliance.org/
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