Does your IoT application need low-cost mobile broadband that’s here to stay?

This article originally appeared in the March'25 magazine issue of Electronic Specifier Design – see ES's Magazine Archives for more featured publications.

Written by Mads Fischer, European Sales Director, SIMCom

That’s fine for phone users for whom their smart device has become their primary interface with the connected world. If you are handling your finances on your phone, paying in supermarkets, holding video conferences, accessing streaming services, even booking an Uber, you need the fastest access possible. But there are many other applications that require Internet access, but which do not need this high level of performance. One might be tempted to say, OK, well there is always 4G/LTE’. But that’s just the point, we know that 4G/LTE only has a limited life span. The exact timing is not known, but the first 4G LTE sunset announcements could be made as early as 2030. For those looking to introduce industrial automation in smart factories using a connected network of industrial sensors, for example, five or even ten years is not a long time.

And yet 5G – which certainly will have longevity – is probably an overkill solution for many IoT applications. If you are not looking to stream video, then you don’t need 5G’s blistering speed which will cope with gigabits per second of throughput in the downlink and uplink. Why pay for capabilities you don’t need and won’t use?

 There’s also another issue – design complexity. 5G designs are not simple to implement; there are a lot of design considerations and decisions to be made around the silicon, RF modulation, baseband processing and more – essentially issues that become much more challenging at the high speeds that 5G delivers.

But again, on the other hand, 5G includes a lot of other nice features that LTE did not – low latency, time sensitive networks, point-to-point communications. Many of these capabilities target industrial and IoT applications.

It is into this space that the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) consortium – the body of seven national or regional telecommunication standards organisations and other stakeholders in the communications ecosystem focused on developing mobile communications protocols – have released a new category of 5G. 5G NR Release 17 introduces ‘RedCap’ (Reduced Capability, also known as NR-Light), which is a platform positioned to applications that do not need the extreme speeds offered by ‘full’ 5G, but which do need a stable connection, fast response time, and the assurance of a long installed life. By decreasing the speed, many of the design complexity challenges are removed, power consumption is significantly reduced leading to increased battery life, device footprint is smaller, and parts can be much more cost effective – coming in at around one third the price of ‘classic’ 5G.

RedCap-enabled systems deliver speeds of 220Mbps (downlink) and 100Mbps (uplink). Design optimisations include:

• Narrower bandwidths – 20MHz in <7GHz
• Single transmit and receive antennas (option to have two receive antennas)
• Lower transmit power support
• Lower-order modulation – optional 256-QAM
• Optional support for half-duplex FDD

Moreover, 5G radio technology is a move in the right direction for utilising the frequency spectrum – possibly the world’s newest identified ‘natural resource’ – more effectively, so opening up 5G for a much wider range of applications in the IoT space is a very good thing.

To support customers looking to implement a RedCap 5G platform and enable them to get up and running quickly and easily, SIMCom is amongst the first to offer a RedCap module. SIMCom is committed to providing a variety of cellular wireless modules and solutions and maintains a 5G laboratory spanning more than 5,000 square metres, staffed by a senior R&D team of nearly 1,000 professionals.

SIMCom’s SIM8230 is a multi-band 5G NR/LTE-FDD/LTE-TDD module which supports R17 5G SA. With a rich set of protocols and interfaces including PCIe, USB2.0 and GPIO, the module delivers great flexibility and integration. SIM8230 modules adopt the LGA +LCC form factor with various interfaces, measuring 30 x 30 x 2.5mm. The AT commands of SIM8230 modules are compatible with SIMCom’s SIM7600/8200/8260 series 4G/LTE devices which also minimises costs for customers and shortens time to market. SIM8230 modules deliver up to 220Mbps (DL)/100Mbps (UL) for Sub-6G SA, or 200 Mbps (DL)/75Mbps (UL) for LTE. Modules are available in different versions for use in different regions. Due to their high efficiency, security and flexibility, the modules suit various IoT and M2M applications including indoor CPE, MIFI, and industrial control.

We expect RedCap technology and our 5G RedCap modules to be ideally suited to low-cost mobile broadband applications, and because they are pin-for-pin compatible with our 4G/LTE modules, designers can effectively plug and play with exiting designs that they may have already.