European standards body ETSI has launched a new version of the DECT wireless technology with low latency mesh communication for millions of nodes in the Internet of Things (IoT).
The DECT-2020 New Radio standard has been developed to support broad and diverse wireless IoT applications at 1900MHz requiring both ultra-reliable and low-latency communication needed in voice and industrial applications.
The DECT standards were developed by ETSI in the 1990’s and has been implemented in more than a billion short-range communication devices around the world. A low energy version was proposed back in 2013 when the technology was aiming at smart home applications but struggled with a limited data rate with the original radio front end that was developed for cordless phones.
The ETSI TS 103 636 series for DECT2020 NR defines a radio interface applying modern radio technologies for massive machine-type communication with millions of devices in a network required in use cases such as logistics and asset tracking, industry 4.0 and building automation as well as condition monitoring.
The technology enables self-organising autonomous and automatic operation with minimal maintenance effort. DECT-2020 NR supports mesh communication, with low latency communication links, enabling massive machine-type communications (mMTC) for industry automation without a need for infrastructure investments.
DECT-2020 NR also supports ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) for professional wireless audio applications with point-to-point or multicast communications. Dynamic channel selection means DECT-2020 NR radios do not require frequency planning and the complexity of the front end is relatively low. The standard has a dedicated global frequency band at around 1900 MHz.
“ETSI’s new standard is a great response to the needs industries have in digitalization,” said Jussi Numminen, Vice Chair of the ETSI Technical Committee DECT.
“The new standard brings mMTC and URLLC performance to a whole new level, which provides great flexibility to address large-scale and high-density applications in logistics and building automation, and low-latency applications in industry automation. In terms of bit rates, communication range and reliability, the DECT-2020 NR technology offers completely new opportunities for local and private networks as industrial companies, solution providers and other players can independently develop their own solutions and services,” he said.
