Through a strange confluence of events in the 1990s, a wireless technology company formed in Akron, Ohio. Aironet, as it was named, worked to define the WiFi space and was a gathering of Telxon RF Engineering, Telesystem SLW and Accipter.
If you were a technical employee of Aironet, you knew that the SSID of the only 802.11 network in town was ‘tsunami’… Feel the Wave, as they would say.
Jumping 20 years ahead to today, a new revolutionary leap in technology is upon us.
On Friday March 31st, 2017, Verizon Wireless announced the official roll out and availability of the first nationwide LTE Cat M1 network. This network provides scale, coverage, and security for those looking to deploy a fleet of IoT devices that need nationwide connectivity. Designed with Machines (the M in M1) and sensor devices in mind, the LTE Cat M1 network is made to communicate with devices operating on battery power (low power requirements), and data rates suitable for machine and sensor data.
Pulled from their press release, devices on the Verizon network will connect with data plans starting as low as $2/month. With this low price to ramp unto the America’s best network, we foresee fleets of devices scrambling to be connected.
Working with Verizon, Hallsten Innovations has a development path for LTE Cat M1 device development through the utilization (just sampling now) of the HL Series Air Prime wireless module from Sierra Wireless. These HL7718 modules utilize the same framework as existing Sierra Wireless 3G hardware components, making development a snap. These new modules are in the CF3 compact size, and measure just 22 x 23mm in area, and can be added to a device through a connector, or directly soldered as a component.
Verizon has kept me in the loop, and I’ve been very excited about this happening for months. This technology not only expands the capabilities of what devices can do, but it also improves security, removes bottlenecks, and simplifies roll out. I am likely to be in an outstanding mood for many weeks to come. Give us a call and let me tell you why I am excited!
Note: The Aironet company, through purchase and acquisition, has transformed into a Cisco Wireless engineering office in Richfield, Ohio- Howdy Boys!