A new MulteFire Alliance has been formed with the backing of Nokia, Qualcomm, Ericsson and Intel to promote MulteFire, an LTE-based technology for small cells operating solely in unlicensed spectrum, such as the global 5 GHz unlicensed band.
MulteFire will utilize the robust radio link, ease of management and self-organizing characteristics of LTE and its 3GPP standard evolution to deliver enhanced performance in local area network deployments.
“By bringing the benefits of LTE technologies to unlicensed spectrum, MulteFire helps provide enhanced coverage, capacity and mobility. It can also improve the Quality of Experience and security in private network deployments” said Stephan Litjens, Vice President, Portfolio Strategy & Analytics, Mobile Broadband, Nokia, and MulteFire Alliance board chair. “This technology is also aimed to deliver value to existing mobile networks and private customers such as building owners. MulteFire can act as a “neutral host” with the ability to serve users from multiple operators, especially in hard to reach places such as indoor locations, venues and enterprises.”
“With MulteFire, consumers and network providers will enjoy the combination of 4G-LTE like performance with Wi-Fi-like deployment simplicity in local-area deployments,” said Ed Tiedemann, Senior Vice President, Engineering, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and MulteFire Alliance board member. “Users will benefit from an enhanced connectivity experience when moving across spaces such as shopping malls and corporate offices thanks to MulteFire’s mobility features and optional integration with wide-area networks.”
