The MulteFire Alliance, an independent, diverse and international member-driven consortium that is defining and promoting MulteFire® technology – LTE technology operating standalone in unlicensed bands – today announced that MulteFire technology is ready for commercial deployment in Japan. The Alliance will host a celebration event – MulteFire Works – on February 13 from 4:00-7:00pm in the Silver12 Ballroom at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel. During the event, MulteFire Alliance member companies will demonstrate MulteFire use cases for Enterprise. The event is open to anyone with an interest in MulteFire technology; register here.
“MulteFire technology operating standalone in the 1.9 GHz band brings new capabilities to our enterprise subscribers, and it will help enable us to connect billions of new IoT devices,” said Yoshioki Chika, MulteFire Alliance Board Member and Senior Director of SoftBank’s Solution Strategy Office. “We hope that the industry will join us for this evening reception to see the live demos and celebrate this milestone moment for MulteFire.”
The recently completed MulteFire Release 1.1 specification added support for the 1.9 GHz band, also known as sXGP in Japan, takes advantage of the devices ecosystem in 3GPP Band 39. MulteFire is now ready for commercial deployment in Japan with support from the XGP Forum and an ecosystem of TD-LTE devices in places today. The standardization of sXGP was completed in January 2018 as the first unlicensed LTE in Band 39.
“The commercialization of MulteFire in Japan is here,” said Yoshiya Iribe, Secretary General, XGP Forum. “There are more than 1 billion mobile terminals that are already supported by the 1.9 GHz band of MulteFire Release 1.1 and several companies have launched eNodeBs that will enable MulteFire deployments. We applaud the MulteFire Alliance’s efforts to deliver a new wireless technology that supports business-critical applications for industrial IoT, utilities, transportation, and more, and we are excited to share the technology benefits at MulteFire Works.”
MulteFire Works Technology Demonstrations
The MulteFire Works event will feature live demonstrations in 1.9 GHz, as well as technology demonstrations for the global unlicensed 5 GHz band. Participating companies include Athonet, Baicells, DEKRA Japan, Nokia, Qucell, Quortus and Sanjole.
The MulteFire Alliance is an international association dedicated to building a global ecosystem in support of the common interests of members, developers and users in the application of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and next-generation mobile cellular technology, such as 5G New Radio, in configurations that use unlicensed or shared radio spectrum. For more information about MulteFire, its benefits, or how to become a member of the MulteFire Alliance, visit www.multefire.org.