The world’s first non-cellular 5G connection demonstrated in Finland

Wirepas and Nordic Semiconductor staged a demonstration of DECT NR+ at the recent ETSI TC DECT#94 plenary meeting that took place in Finland.

Massive IoT is becoming a reality with the non-cellular 5G Mesh. A test network acts as the product proof of concept demonstration. It visually shows data connection in the DECT-2020/NR+ network – the technology standard behind the 5G Mesh. The 5G Mesh demonstration was jointly presented in the ETSI TC DECT#94 plenary meeting by Wirepas and Nordic Semiconductor on June 29th in Tampere, Finland. 

With DECT-2020, it will be possible for anyone to deploy and connect devices in license-exempt, private 5G networks for the first time. This represents a massive opportunity for connecting billions of devices easily and reliably.

 While the IoT market and connectivity issues have existed for quite some time, there hasn’t been a standardized solution. Previous solutions have not solved the problems cost-efficiently and reliably on the required scale. For this reason, the prevalence of connected devices has been delayed.

DECT-2020 NR is the first standard designed specifically to solve the IoT connectivity problem.  Wirepas hosted the ETSI TC DECT#94 meeting at the end of June in Tampere, Finland. This is an open event to all ETSI members from industries developing DECT-2020 NR and DECT technology.

The 5G Mesh demonstration network shown at the meeting is a significant step in turning the DECT-2020 standard into a product.

“Based on the technical demo built on Nordic Semiconductor’s commercial hardware & DECT-2020 L1 modem software, and Wirepas Connectivity Suite software, we can confirm that the specification is implementable,” said Kristian Saether, Product Manager for cellular IoT and DECT NR+ in Nordic Semiconductor 

“We were for the first time able to integrate a DECT-2020 radio by Nordic Semiconductor and Wirepas a DECT-2020 connectivity suite and visually demonstrate data connection. This is, in essence, the equivalent of the first GSM call during the mobile phone development programs,” added Jouni Mikkonen, SVP Product and R&D of Wirepas.  

A wireless connection in a network is the steppingstone for the final stages of product development. The DECT-2020 demonstration, which is the first running non-cellular 5G network in the world, received well-earned attention and interest among the participants.  

“Today we achieved a great milestone in the development of DECT-2020, with the first public product demonstration. The standard has been developed in a very short time. We have shown already to ITU-R the properties via simulations. Now we could prove that a real implementation is available and working properly. I expect that DECT-2020 is ready to support a big field of applications.” Dr. Guenter Kleindl, Chairman ETSI TC DECT