The general availability of DECT NR+ has been the talk of the town during the whole webinar series. And finally, product design can truly start for products built on the DECT NR+ standard. The Wirepas 5G Mesh 1.0 Beta release will be available by the end of 2023 for the first lead customers and general availability opens up in Q1/2024, covering the long range profile for mains powered devices, designed especially for applications like smart metering, emergency lighting and street lighting and available in the EU,  Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India in 1880-1900MHz (band 1, 11 channels) spectrum. Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF9161 and nRF9131 chipsets are in production from December 2023, and the DECT NR+ Phase 1 SW release will be ready in February 2024. The Nordic stack implementation for NR+ PHY-level includes 2 options to make a product: 1)Wirepas 5G Mesh solution, mains powered devices focus, thousands of devices and 2) Customers can make or port their own stack implementation on the Nordic PHY API.

Are Matter (CSA) and DECT NR+ interested in working together?

The DECT Forum is interested in cooperating with other forums to help them understand and utilize DECT technologies for their challenges. Initial discussions with CSA members have been held. 

In the UK we have a problem plugging in electric vehicles at home where a smart meter is required, but the only option accepted is the EE 4G/5G mobile network. This does not provide coverage in many places. Can DECT NR+ be used to fill the gaps to the EE network via a gateway for black spots?  

NR+ mesh technology is well suited for black spot filling. The network will use one or multiple gateways to the mobile network and extend the network coverage in the DECT NR+ network. For each use case, more careful analysis is needed as there may be specific requirements, and the data amounts, latency requirements and gateway numbers need to be balanced. 

How does DECT NR+ compete against community networks, like apple Find My, or similar?   

DECT NR+ is seen as private networking and the network is formed by the devices belonging to a device owner. It is different from community networks, where connectivity is offered by multiple, separate device owners as a side product of the device ownership. In many cases, the device owner must ensure the connectivity, and in those cases the community approach is not acceptable for them as it creates undefined indirect dependency to the owners and device manufacturer. 

In an increasingly open world, isn't it interesting that DECT NR+ also works on Open-Source stacks to make it easier to adopt this technology?  

DECT NR+ is an open standard which can be implemented by any commercial company or association. 

Is the Wirepas mesh protocol part of the ETSI DECT NR+ standard or on top of it?   
 
Wirepas 5G Mesh implements the ETSI DECT NR+ standard TS 103 636 series Part 4: MAC layer and Part 5: Data link control and Convergence layer. Wirepas Connectivity Suite products provide additional functionality to optimize the network operations and performance. 

Is there any license or subscription to pay?  

The DECT NR+ technology standard is open and freely available to start developing. DECT NR+ technology does not have subscriptions. A Mesh Network Gateway is usually connected to a Wide Area Network (WAN), e.g., fixed Internet connectivity or Cellular network connectivity, which may be subject to subscription fees. The Wirepas Mesh software product is licensed by the product / solution providers. 

Is support planned for battery-driven routing devices? At which current consumption and latency?  

The technology is in an early introduction phase, and we are currently concentrating on mains-powered operation. The standard is flexible and does allow battery operated routing, however, to date, the implementation has not been done for battery optimization. It is expected that further improvements to the standard and implementation will be made for battery operated routing. The current consumption and latency are inversely related, i.e. less latency requires more power. Application requirements decide what latency and power consumption are achieved. 

When thinking about DECT NR+, we are also talking about IoT, but is it comparable in terms of consumption to what we find today through Bluetooth, Zigbee, Wirepas 2.4GHz, etc.? I mean less than 10mA in TX and a few µA in RX?  

The transmission power in DECT NR+ is adjusted from -40 to +23 dBm. The current consumption varies a lot depending on the link range and quality. The measurements are still incomplete for the HW, but the numbers mentioned are in the range of the TX power configured. RX uses a lot less than TX, but the µA range is achieved in sleep state, not in active RX. 

As I’m new to DECT NR+, why should I choose it instead of existing sub-GHz or 2.4GHz solutions?  

One of the design aims was to utilize the band reserved for DECT, as it is a congestion-free, widely available radio band. Click these links for more information on the benefits of DECT NR+ for IoT and audio applications.  

Does the Wirepas Mesh Software use ZephyrOS? 

The Zephyr real-time operating system is not supported by the Wirepas Mesh software. 

If you are looking for more information on the DECT NR+ standard general availability, please go check out the webinar recording as well as the panel discussion held after the webinar.

We also urge you to read the previous blogs and watch the webinar recordings on the DECT NR+ standard:

Introduction: FAQ Blog and webinar recording

Applications and use cases: FAQ Blog IoT, FAQ Blog Audio and webinar recording

Technology – upper layers: FAQ Blog and webinar recording

Technology – physical layer: FAQ Blog and webinar recording