IP, Services and Custom Technology

Sequans provides custom technology solutions to its customers in several vertical markets, including public safety, aviation, government, and transportation
Ultra Large Cell Extend Doppler Support Non-3GPP Frequencies LTE for Satellite

Empowering Innovation Through Tailored LTE Solutions

Sequans works with customers to develop custom solutions to meet their particular needs through a process of collaboration on defining, developing, integrating, and validating the solutions according to specific customer requirements.

Working with customers on this basis, Sequans engineers have leveraged their extensive knowledge of LTE, based on many years of experience in 4G and 5G technology development, and have modified standard LTE for non-standard applications, resulting in powerful solutions for some of the world’s most exciting communication projects.

Application Examples

Aviation

Sequans developed specialized on-board devices for the European Aviation Network launched by Inmarsat and Deutsche Telecom. Working with Nokia and Thales, Sequans customized its chip technology to deliver advanced capabilities.

Transportation

Working with the RATP (Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens), the state–owned public transport operator in Paris, Sequans modified its LTE chip technology for use in the very challenging underground environment of the public metro system.

Public Safety

Public safety communications devices require specialized technology for mission critical applications, such as ruggedized devices and high levels of security. Sequans has modified its technology for public safety purposes as a member of LTE4PMR (LTE for public mobile radio).

Government

Sequans modified its LTE chip technology for the Japan government and worked with Japan Radio Company to develop a specialized CPE that required an ultra high powered radio front-end and was required to operate on the 200 MHz frequency band.

Ultra Large Cell Range

Many important applications for LTE mandate a cell size larger than what the 3GPP defines

While maximum cell size is determined by the link budget, the decoding capacity of the user device, and the PRACH (physical random access channel) format, modifying these parameters can enable a larger cell size as needed for applications such as connecting an LTE ground network to a satellite network or to airplanes in flight.

By going beyond the standard and modifying 3GPP parameters for access, handover, and cell reselection, Sequans engineers have modified their LTE technology for deployment in these extraordinary situations and have enabled cell sizes to exceed 150 kilometers in radius while maintaining a robust communications link throughout the entire cell area.

Extend Doppler Support

Defined in the latest 3GPP LTE release specifications are minimum requirements for the speed of the LTE modem that establishes a baseline level of performance

There are several applications that require a level of speed well above this baseline such as air-to-ground communications for high-speed vehicles, underground trains, or airplanes where the velocity of the user equipment can be 1200 kilometers per hour, well above the velocities defined by 3GPP in the standard. Sequans, a leader in LTE with 15 years of experience developing and refining 4G modem technologies, has successfully addressed several high-speed applications for both trains and airplanes by customizing and enhancing LTE solutions beyond the requirements of the LTE standard.

Non 3GPP Frequencies

The 3GPP standard identifies a wide range of frequency bands for LTE for both TDD and FDD modes that are used around the world by mobile operators

Sequans has unique experience in developing LTE to support the very high number of LTE bands that have been allocated and was the first chipmaker to introduce Single-SKU™ technology that enables a single hardware configuration to support the 17+ LTE bands that are in use today. Demand exists to support other non-standard frequencies for applications including, but not limited to, private LTE and military projects.

Supporting these non-standard frequencies requires modifications to the baseband and also to the RFIC and radio front-end. Sequans is a leader in this area of expertise and has developed its technology to support several non-3GPP frequencies, demonstrating and validating its hardware designs along the way. In a key example, Sequans modified its technology for a special CPE that was designed to operate on a very low frequency band that has been designated for public safety services in a major country.

LTE for Satellite

Satellite around Earth

3GPP is expanding LTE definitions at each major feature release

One of the next features under consideration is the use of LTE to link terrestrial networks with satellite networks. In 2G and 3G networks, satellite implementations were seen as proprietary and were led by the satellite operators, each developing a slightly different version to compete with the rest. While the industry waits for the next release, 5G, to be published, Sequans focused its attention on developing 4G LTE to support satellite adaptations for the full range of categories from broadband to NB-IoT.

Driven by customer and operator specifications, Sequans has modified its technology to support satellite applications, and in one key project has improved the RTT (round trip time) to address both coarse and fine latencies that are introduced in satellite networks. This is made possible because Sequans owns the full LTE stack and applications running on Sequans hardware, both chip and hardware boards.

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