Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm Inc., announced Tuesday two new critically important elements of the Qualcomm Network designed to deliver simple, consistent and seamless connected experiences.
As network complexity and expectations skyrocket at the hands of insatiable consumer demand, Qualcomm Technologies is introducing a suite of features, for deployment across IoT devices, IoT hubs, and network gateways, that centralize and manage the complex and diverse connectivity technologies and ecosystems – the Qualcomm Network IoT Connectivity platform.
Additionally, Qualcomm Technologies is further broadening the capabilities of its Qualcomm Wi-Fi Self Organizing Network (SON) solution to help ensure the best managed network possible.
The growth of IoT services and smart home devices has, until now, created islands of products rendered incompatible by conflicting connectivity technologies, communication protocols, and software frameworks.
Building upon the success of Qualcomm Technologies’ device-focused IoT solutions, such as the QCA401x and QCA4531, the Qualcomm Network IoT Connectivity platform is designed to help ensure compatible and simultaneous use of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, CSRmesh connectivity, and 802.15.4-based technologies across a network.
The Qualcomm Network IoT Connectivity platform also supports previously announced communication protocols, cloud services and software frameworks, allowing it to act as a universal translator. By connecting previously disparate product portfolios and ecosystems, the Qualcomm Network IoT Connectivity platform minimizes complexity and eases fragmentation challenges for manufacturers, developers and consumers.
With distributed networks seeing significant product traction, and the value Wi-Fi SON brings to networks recognized, Qualcomm Technologies is expanding its Wi-Fi SON capabilities to include support for both wired and wireline-based networks. This update allows network installations dependent on PLC, a previously announced upgrade, and/or Ethernet, to leverage the same innovative features, regardless of the network medium, that currently define the Wi-Fi implementations of SON.
The upgrade also improves support for multi-hop network topologies. While a star topology is ideal for a majority of homes, there are many (multi-level, thick structures) where a multi-hop topology is more beneficial. Multi-hop topologies are the prototypical mesh-style configurations, and the addition of this option to Wi-Fi SON is designed to ensure a wider potential range of successful Wi-Fi SON implementations.
It also delivers expansion of supported architectures to include MIPS-based systems. Both the Qualcomm Network IoT Connectivity platform and expanded Qualcomm Wi-Fi SON features are available now as integrated offerings for Qualcomm Technologies Wi-Fi solutions for network infrastructure devices like network routers and gateways, with the Qualcomm Network IoT Connectivity Platform also available through Qualcomm Technologies IoT device and hub solutions portfolio.
“The Qualcomm Network continues to redefine connected experiences by making connectivity simple, high quality and consistent across devices and technologies,” said Gopi Sirineni, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “ IoT Connectivity platform and our expanded Wi-Fi SON capabilities together are designed to deliver on that promise by directly addressing the most fundamental connectivity challenges of IoT while ensuring a broad delivery of our innovations across wired and wireless networks.”
