Not Red Bull, RedCap which stands for Reduced Capabilities, which is basically IOT. However, don’t limit yourself to low bandwidth because cameras also fall into this category. The low bandwidth exception is video because of the high data rates required for live feeds. The dream for video is to put these cameras anywhere. Some cameras can run using solar and that is going to open the doors. Imagine that freedom to put cameras anywhere using solar and/or batteries for an emergency or an event. RedCap includes wireless cameras because of its limited use, (one capability, more or less, to provide a video stream).

You may have heard of NR-Light which is the same as RedCap. Qualcomm has a nice presentation you can download from here. When reading this learn from the data but remember it’s basically a sales pitch for RedCap. 

So, when I said IOT you got it right away, right? Unfortunately, most companies working for this opportunity don’t just say it. They know they have to appeal to the larger companies (carriers) who have deep pockets to get this out there. They expect them to roll out mass devices to anyone, which they eventually will. Unfortunately, most people don’t want to pay a carrier.

The other companies interested in this application are anyone who supply the auto companies. Think about the mass deployment of automobiles and how GM and Ford alone sell 10s of thousands of cars all connected to the internet in some way using a carrier. This is a huge device market, or chip, that they can put in the cars. Now that electric vehicles, EVs, are taking off, there is a new market for deploying 5G in cars. Unfortunately, today they are still putting in (mostly) 4G solutions.

I can also see utilities jumping on the bandwagon here. They have to cover mass territory to get all the data. However, most utilities hate that monthly bill and unstable fees that the carriers impose on them.

It’s pretty obvious, if there is coverage then they can quickly connect their devices back to the NOC. It seems most utilities still want to build their own network because of the carrier’s fees and spotty coverage where they need it. 

Today, most of these devices can be connected using LoRaWAN, SigFox, LTE-M, and NB-LTE. I will cover below. 

Just to be clear, the OEMs are pushing RedCap right now because they see it as their next avenue of growth. If it takes off, then the entire ecosystem will take off. Right now, the ecosystem is weak.

The use cases are clear. It will work for many if they want to pay a carrier. Public safety could use this because they cover a very large area. Utilities could too. Plenty of use cases are out there but today I owls like to point out some issues moving ahead.

RedCap is not new by any means. We’ve been discussing it since 2020, maybe even 2018. In 2021 OMDIA release a report. It’s been around for so long but got lost in all the carrier deployments. Well, they’re winding down now, except maybe for AT&T who appears to be lagging. Now, many see this as the next driver for revenue. 

The ecosystem is weak today (2024).

Qualcomm is doing a good job of promoting this solution, mainly because they want to sell their chips and patents, which is great. We have to look at what’s out there today, not as much as we would like. We need devices to deploy, I will talk about that below.

The other thing is the carriers are so focused on broadband that this market is more or less an afterthought. Do you remember the DISH dealt with Ericsson to deploy an IOT network back in 2018? That would have been a great leap forward for RedCap systems. As we all know, that never happened because of the T-Mobile takeover of Sprint which gave DISH a chance to build a full blown 5G network. 

On a side note, can you imagine what Ericsson’s DISH sales team went through? You get a huge win, publicly announcing that you’re the only vendor, and then, a few months later, it’s ripped out from under you. All those commission dollars and future earnings are gone. That had to be hell! On the other hand, don’t cry for Ericsson, they just pushed Nokia out of AT&T so they got a win this year which not only looks good but they get a ton of future earnings that Nokia had to say goodbye to. It’s a dog-eat-dog business!

I am wondering how the spectrum issues will be handled. One of the plans was to have it in the unlicensed bands, I am assuming 900MHz and CBRS. That should cover both low and high bandwidth use cases. According to Ericsson there will be 2 flavors of bandwidth, 20MHz and 100MHz. That seems straight-forward and it explains why the carriers don’t want to put it on their existing network. Why load up the broadband spectrum with these little devices?  Maybe the carriers will migrate some 3G and LTE bands over for this capability. It would make sense now that they have Band 41, C-Band, and PAL CBRS spectrums deployed. Move the smaller chunks over for your IOT network. 

What about the devices? Honestly, I don’t see many UE devices out there. After all, they need to be very efficient and outside of cameras, I don’t know if there are many available. I could not find anything commercially available today. 

Devices would need to have a very long battery life. To do that you need to tell the unit to wake up and go to sleep. Energy use is another factor. I think that the radios will be OK, lower power, but they probably have to listen all the time and be ready to wake up the devices at any time. 

The competition.

When I say competition, I mean what other alternatives are there? Let me count the systems that are up and running today.

LTE-M – this is the carrier’s choice today for some solutions. They really like this today. There are many devices made for this but it’s more of a mass market appeal and not always use case specific. Also called LTE-MTC for Machine Type Communications. Sometimes it is called LPWAN for Low Power Wide Area Network. Data rates are generally 4 Mbps or less.

NB-IOT – meaning Narrow Band Internet of Things. Generally known for lower bandwidth, 127 Kbps or less and very narrow band, 200 KHz. For outdoor use this has been a choice of utilities that bought their own spectrum, a very narrow band sometimes in 900MHz spectrum but could be anything really. There are devices for this spectrum and people are doing it today.

LoRaWAN and LoRa – the way I see it is that this is the clear leader in IOT. When I talk to people tracking or doing simple data updates, this is the first choice of many. The battery life is great, the coverage is what you make it and then some, and the number of devices are many. This is the first choice and it’s the biggest obstacle that RedCap will face. It is cheap, reliable, and has a ton of devices already working on it. At least in the US market.

Wi-Fi – Obviously this isn’t going anywhere and is the #1 choice inside. Almost everyone has Wi-Fi indoors and if you want something in your home, chances are very good this is the #1 choice. I am trying to figure out why AR devices would choose anything over Wi-Fi for home use. This is perceived as free because most people have a Wi-Fi gateway in their homes. 

BLE – this is very common but remember, it has to be close to the gateway to pull any information, BLE is nice but anything outside of the immediate area will not work. 

SigFox – This is the second most common IOT format used out there. I think that worldwide it has done very well but, in the US, not a lot of mass deployments. This is hard to compete with because it’s so cheap.

Satellites – Let’s not forget the obvious competitor which has been around for a very long time, non-terrestrial solutions. Now that LEO solutions are coming about we can see a real advance in using the birds in the sky solutions more and more.

Where is the opportunity for us?

Here is what I’m thinking, we have to be open to new technology and see what happens. To develop a new device may take a long time and getting acceptance on a carrier’s network may prove expensive. Who wants that without a huge customer behind you? I would think that Qualcomm would pave the way by getting their chips approved. 

Are you wondering why Qualcomm is behind it? Let me tell you why, or at least what I am thinking, because they expect this market to be massive. They also expect the unlicensed bands to blow up when devices start using it to play games and for virtual reality devices to take off. 3GPP’s Rel 18 is allowing Sidelink which supports coverage extensions on 5G unlicensed spectrum, maybe in very high 

So here is what I am thinking, if we can build our own HetNet (Heterogeneous Networks) using multiple technologies to deploy. We could eventually migrate to RedCap but until there are devices built for specific purposes, (like meter reading, tags, and so on), we can’t deploy much of anything. Be open because I know people are rolling our LoRa devices everywhere. I have also seen a lot of SigFox solutions out there. Then we have Wi-Fi and BLE connecting many devices. So, 5G and LTE are currently the backhaul choice when there is not a cheaper alternative. 

The perception of anything connected using a carrier is that they will bleed you try on recurring costs. That’s the reason why MVNOs have taken off. They offer the carrier’s network and normally a stable cost that rarely goes up whereas direct to carrier means unstable billing even though they say that’s not true. 

The solution has to work, but it also has to be at a fair cost. Most customers want to solve the problem and either save money by handing this off to machines or deploying them as cheaply as possible to solve the problem. Either way, our job is to come up with the solution that solves their problem within the budget they give you.

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