LTE IoT BLOG

The IoT wearable device market has grown tremendously over the last six years, from just $750 million in 2012 to almost $6 billion today. Following their rollout out last year, LTE-M and NB-IoT networks have...

There were numerous innovations demoed and discussed at this year’s MWC Americas. However, AT&T’s announcement with G+D and Altair of the development of the first MNO-grade integrated SIM (iUICC), for deployment across cellular LPWA networks,...

Earlier this month, the Altair team was once again thrilled to head to Los Angeles for the second MWC Americas exhibition. We joined 22,000 participants from more than 100 countries to view and discuss the...

This week, Altair is pleased to share a guest blog post by Gus Vos, Chief Engineer, Technology Standards for Sierra Wireless. With recent demonstrations of 5G having taken place as recently as the Olympic Winter Games and Superbowl LII, interest...

When the new generation of Cat-M1 (LTE-M) and NB-IoT networks began rolling out, there was considerable speculation as to which markets would push forward each technology. The two largest U.S. carriers decided to prioritize Cat-M1...

In our last blog post, we looked at the first steps to developing devices for IoT low power consumption devices. This installment will focus on one specific IoT scenario and how it can be optimized...

In our latest webinar How to Design Low-Power IoT Applications, Dima Feldman, Altair’s Head of Product Management, takes us through the steps necessary for designing and deploying low-powered IoT applications. In this first part of...

In February, Murata Electronics, a global leader in enabling embedded modules, announced it was teaming with Altair to develop its first cellular IoT solutions. Three months on, we caught up with Mehul Udani, Murata’s Director...

In the general clamor surrounding cellular IoT connectivity, it’s easy to overlook some of those key components that may not receive the attention they deserve. One example is the 450 MHz spectrum, currently utilized for...

Did you read our first blog, summarizing the questions and answers around Low Power IoT applications? In the second installment, we summarize additional answers from Altair’s Director of Product Management Dima Feldman, together with Bryan...

Altair Semiconductor was once again delighted to team up with Sierra Wireless for a second webinar focusing on low-powered LTE-M and NB-IoT applications. In this episode – LPWA Expert Panel: Answering Your Questions on Designing...

This week, Altair is pleased to share a guest blog post by Gus Vos, Chief Engineer, Technology Standards for Sierra Wireless. Our recent webinar, Designing Low-Power Applications for LTE-M and NB-IoT LPWA Networks, sparked a flood...

With the continued rollout of new LTE-M and NB-IoT networks, increasingly more vertical industries are recognizing and adopting cellular IoT as the most viable solution for IoT connectivity. This is especially true for the aftermarket...

After months of planning, the Altair/Sony team was thrilled to head to Barcelona for the world’s largest mobile event. This year, Mobile World Congress included 107,000 visitors from 205 countries and territories. More than 2,400...

Brendan Schaffer, Director of Business Development at Sony Semiconductor, has been with Altair for over seven years. In that time, he has seen the company evolve from a young broadband LTE startup into an internationally...

The vision of smart connected IoT devices is quickly becoming a reality.  The promise of billions of devices, deployed in any location and seamlessly interacting, is now enabled by the latest generation of cellular LPWA...

Every year, CES gets bigger and crazier. Navigating 11 Vegas venues, 2.6 million square feet (241,548 square meters) of exhibition space with 180,000 people, and dealing with taxi lines and Uber cancellations is not for...

As the adoption of the next generation of cellular IoT networks continues, it seems no one technology will ultimately dominate. The US and Australia have spearheaded the rollout of CAT-M1. This process is motivated by...

When it comes to power consumption in IoT applications, less is decidedly more. Nowhere is this more evident than with the advances of LTE in evolving from a vast power-hungry technology to support the current...

When I was growing up, there was a popular commercial on TV. It was an ad for financial services, and the tagline went, “When EF Hutton talks … people listen.” I guess today, and especially...

For generations, technology adoption has developed in a consistent manner: A product is introduced. Early adopters pay a premium to be first to use it. More of the market sees the value and pays a...

Last week, and with considerable fanfare, T-Mobile announced completing the trial of North America’s first NB-IoT network. This in contrast to AT&T and Verizon’s strategy for an initial CAT-M1 rollout, to be followed by NB1...

In the ongoing push to establish the next generation of cellular IoT networks, the remaining key question is: Which technology should be rolled out first – CAT-M1, offering a quicker time-to-market, or CAT-NB1, providing a...

As the Internet of Things continues to advance, the smart metering market is expected to explode. Influenced by rising energy prices, increases of energy theft, demand for more accurate billing and a heightened awareness of...

Traditionally, the greatest rises tend to precipitate the hardest falls. However, we occasionally encounter a situation where a fall is essential to advancing the greatest of rises. The case of cellular IoT provides us with...

There were two phrases that dominated this year’s Mobile World Congress, “IoT” and “5G.” If MWC revealed anything at all, it’s that the IoT will be much bigger than initially anticipated, with far more interconnected...

If this year’s Consumer Electronics Show is anything to go by, 2017 will be the year of cellular IoT. If there was one thing to take out from CES this year, it’s that, as the...

With over 12 billion devices currently connected to the internet, and an estimated 50 billion to be connected by 2020, the Internet of Things continues to affect ever-increasing aspects of our personal and professional lives....

The IoT continues to grow at an ever-increasing rate. Although we are yet to reach the connected world predicted in the smart homes of Back to the Future II or the geo-marketing and autonomous cars...

Hollywood has no shortage of over-the-top movies focused on hacking. Movies such as Live Free or Die Hard, in which criminal elements gain complete control of the United States via sophisticated hacking. However, as the...

If recent forecasts are any indication, the Internet of Things is poised to become just what the doctor ordered over the next few years. Doctors and nurses, hospital administrators and medical researchers will be increasingly...

Despite all the technological advances being made in the realm of renewable energy infrastructure, the move to push renewable alternatives into the mainstream has been surprisingly slow. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, total...

Over the past few years, wearable devices have emerged from the fringes of the consumer technology market to become one of the hottest trends today. In the last two years alone, sales of wearable devices...

According to a recent report from Statista, the number of connected devices in use around the world is expected to reach 50.1 billion by the year 2020. In other words, enough to provide every person...

As people increasingly move into urban areas, they bring with them new challenges. City officials face pressure to address issues, including traffic congestion, increased air and water pollution, and energy shortages, all within the constraints...

Your hero enters the dungeon, sword drawn. Down the corridor, you spot a dragon with smoke billowing out its nostrils pacing back and forth, preparing to strike. You inch closer, ready to duel — and...

Today’s businesses are experiencing greater competition than ever before. With the rise of e-commerce and the ease and convenience of travel, the world is a now much smaller place, inviting more businesses to vie for...

We’ve seen it in the movies hundreds of times: The authorities are hot on the trail of a dangerous suspect, chasing him through city streets until the perpetrator shakes the tail by disappearing into a...

For over 100 years the Tour de France has been the apex of accomplishment for the world’s greatest cyclists. But at the 103rd annual race this July, a new contestant is poised to fundamentally revolutionize...

Summer is just around the corner and with it all the pleasures of the season. However, along with those long balmy days comes high heat and accompanying health concerns. Weather forecasters are already anticipating another...

It’s time to dust off those grills, break out the shorts and put the air conditioners back in the windows — summer is coming. In addition to the backyard barbeques, outdoor activities and longer days,...

The Major League Baseball (MLB) season is underway for another year of spectacular home runs, diving outfield grabs and plays at the plate. Yet there are many parts of the national pastime that we could...

Following recent developments in Flint, Michigan, it is no surprise that the issue of monitoring the quality of public water supplies has found itself under the microscope. In 2014, the city transferred its water supply...

Would-be criminals, beware: the IoT has come to the aid of security and surveillance technology to ensure that your unlawful schemes will not succeed. Thanks to the now ubiquitous reach of cost-efficient, long-range 4G LTE...

Are you one of the millions of people that came out of the movie theater after seeing “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” wishing you had some Jedi mind tricks of your own? Even if your...

If this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is any indication, 2016 will be the year that virtual reality (VR) finally makes its way into the mainstream. The show, which took place last week in Las...

Verizon’s recent announcement that it plans to build a 4G LTE network specifically for IoT-connected devices is more than warranted. Not least because adding more small low-data-using devices to its existing network is not cost-effective....

According to eMarketer, there are currently 1.9 billion smartphone users in the world. That means there is now a whole lot of data passing through the Internet, from smartphone access to social media platforms and...

According to Gartner, 25 billion devices will be connected to the IoT by the year 2020. The advent of connected technology, on both a large and small scale, is creating an increasing demand for stronger...

In 2008, the number of internet-connected devices surpassed the number of people on this earth, according to tech giant Cisco. As this trend gains momentum, it will continue to transform our lives, from wearable devices...

It’s a situation that we’re all familiar with: not-so-patiently navigating the morning rush-hour traffic, only to be held up at a traffic light — even though there’s no traffic at all crossing our path. Not...

Police officers are on the front lines every day, protecting and serving their communities. For this reason, they are well-equipped with an array of gadgets to assist them in fulfilling their duties. Beyond the traditional...

School is back in session, and with that comes a sense of nostalgia; the smell of dry erase markers, the rustling of papers, and the slamming of locker doors as students scurry to get ready...

When we think of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we may immediately be reminded of the 2001 Stephen Spielberg film in which a child android longs to be real in order to reclaim the love of the...

Anyone who’s been following technology – or even just general – news will have heard a lot about Internet of Things (IoT) or “smart” devices recently. And some might be asking just how much of...

As a company in the midst of disrupting the Internet of Things (IoT) marketplace with new low-power, low-cost 4G LTE chipsets, we are committed to proving that LTE for IoT can help improve people’s lives...

What makes a superhero? Superhuman strength? Sure! Lightning-quick speed? Certainly! But let’s not forget the other advantage that many of these heroes share – access to amazing technology. In fact, many of these fictional adventurers...

“Are we there yet?” No four words can better sum-up the impatience and frustration of a family road trip. This is made even more frustrating by the knowledge that the child asking this question is...

It is no secret that California is currently enduring one of the worst droughts in its history. According to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), the three year period between October 2011 and October...

Those of us born to a previous generation remember a time when backpacks were nothing more than material receptacles held together by a few seams and zippers. These knapsacks—which we slung over our shoulders or...

As you have probably noticed by now, we discuss LTE quite frequently on the Altair blog. And sure, as a maker of innovative, low price, low power LTE chipset solutions, we have a vested interest...

Growing up as children in the ’70s and ’80s, “The Jetsons” sci-fi cartoon program embodied our vision of how the future would be, and it was nothing less than exhilarating. Now with the arrival of...

The numbers are officially getting crazy. Recently, Machina Research released a study estimating that the Internet of Things (IoT) global market will reach $4.3 trillion (yes that is trillion, spelled with a ‘T’) by 2024....

I recently had the opportunity to deliver one of the keynote speeches at the Imagination Summit. It’s an event that brings together hundreds of top executives and engineers who are in the trenches of the...

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: You turn around for one minute in the grocery store or airport and when you look back your child is no longer in sight. Adrenaline makes your heart race as...

Just when you thought the Internet of Things (IoT) couldn’t get any cooler, it has found its way into the world of fine liquor. Yes, the IoT is now being paired with Johnnie Walker’s premium...

Around this time last year, I wrote a post titled “These Smart Watches Better Sell” for this blog. It was a short piece with a simple message: A lot of time and money had been...

IBM recently announced that it will invest $3 billion to form an IoT division within the company. The technology giant’s investment will be aimed at furthering numerous aspects of the IoT, including expanding its own...

If you had the chance to attend the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this past January, or the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in March, or any number of other technology trade...

Up until recently, home and building security had a problem with no ideal solution: No matter how sophisticated an alarm or lock system was, it could be rendered essentially useless because of simple forgetfulness. In...

Today’s urban cities are practically bursting at the seams. According to research from the United Nations, 54 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a percentage that is expected to increase to upward...

If you could take a look through time to 10 or 20 years from now, what would you see? Imagine smart cities where every traffic light is configured to optimize traffic patterns and ease congestion....

When water wants to go somewhere, it normally finds a way to get there. Of course, it receives valuable help from gravity, but that's just a detail. The point is that it gets there. So...

According to a new ABI Research report, LTE subscriptions will grow to 411 million (4G LTE) and 22 million (4.5G LTE-Advanced) by the end of 2014. No less than 45 LTE-A networks will have been...

We all know fads are short-lived, and while some become mainstream, others don't necessarily succeed. For example, Crocs, the foam clog company, burst onto the scene in 2006 and is now a $1 billion company....

Ever since the days of Noah, and particularly in modern times through the Industrial Revolution, Field of Dreams and the Internet, the concept of "If you build it, they (Actually, in the movie, it was...

Six months ago, I wrote a piece on smartwatches.  In it, I argued that "Today’s devices are essentially sophisticated smartphone accessories...With the exception of some experimental devices...none of today’s smartwatches have stand-alone functionality." I ended by...

Motorola's highly anticipated 360 is not the only Android smartwatch set to be released this year. LG is launching its own Android smartwatch, G Watch.  Here's an interesting new article comparing the the two. Analysts expect...

I recently read an article about Google "Glass" going commercial. Now, we can debate the pros and cons of people walking around, concentrating more on a small piece of glass in front of their faces...

According to a recent Engadget post, AT&T set to beat Verizon by deploying high-definition calls over LTE this month: "With so many apps, services and features on today's smartphones, it's easy to forget that there...

Having recently spent a few days at MWC, where Altair was inundated with meetings upon meetings with carriers, infrastructure vendors, hardware manufacturers and others, there are two major takeaways I was able to see. First,...

In the hi-tech industry, a major deal can make all the difference for a company. A big manufacturer decides to deploy your chipset, and certain companies could just stand by and count the money as...

Normally, we at Altair try to remain calm, even when positive things are happening for us in the market. We have a bunch of industry firsts, and our flagship FourGee product has been certified in...

You may remember that, when I recently wrote about the state of affairs for LTE in China, I had talked about the intense, large-scale trials that were going on in that market. I recently took...

When it comes to LTE, there may be no market as fascinating to observe as India. First, it’s a huge market, and anyone who is going to be involved there will be involved in a...