Qualcomm’s plans for satellite, IoT and industry connectivity

US chipmaker Qualcomm plans to debut its Aware platform in Latin America this year, starting with Brazil, for IoT device management in satellite connectivity.

The idea is to use non-terrestrial networks to directly connect sensors in areas where the connection to ground mobile networks is faulty or insufficient.

The first sector being targeted is power utilities and Qualcomm already has a project with Neoenergia and is talking to other players.

In this interview, Leonardo Finizola, Qualcomm's director of business development for Latin America, discusses projects in different industries to connect sensors directly to satellites.

BNamericas: What are Qualcomm's plans for the power utilities sector?

Finizola: We've been talking to the utility sector across the world and in Latin America, particularly Brazil, for some time. One of these companies is Neoenergia, with whom we have had wideranging talks.

This dialogue is essential for us to understand the sector's needs and for us to come up with a solution that suits exactly what the sector needs.

This industry has a broad set of technological, smart grid challenges. It needs to have system reliability and connectivity across its infrastructure.

Given this, we concluded that we needed to offer something more reliable in cities, especially because there are connectivity 'gaps' outside the main urban centers.

BNamericas: What exactly are we talking about?

Finizola: A new form of satellite connectivity. In 2023, [global mobile network standardization body] 3GPP came with the standardization of Non-Terrestrial Networks, which opened up the possibility of connecting any device, anywhere, with some bandwidth restrictions of course, given the limitations of this type of connection.

At around that some time, Neoenergia came up with the idea of having power equipment sensors that could be connected with a second network as protection.

BNamericas: A direct satellite backup?

Finizola: That's right. When a transformer suffers a problem, for example, this isn't fully monitored today. And even when it is, when the power goes out, the public network connectivity often goes down as well.

So, the idea is that the device tries to 'talk' to the terrestrial networks. If it can't, then it will talk to the satellite network.

And in non-covered areas, which are almost two thirds of the entire electrical utilities' infrastructure network, what would be a backup becomes the primary connectivity, until the day terrestrial connectivity arrives in these more remote areas.

That was the first step.

BNamericas: What were the following ones?

Finizola: The second step was that we had to do it in a way that didn’t significantly change the way machinery companies build their devices because this redesign of sensors is expensive. What we did was develop a chipset that is end-to-end compatible with the different networks, equipment and standards.

The third step was that this would need to be multi-vendor. Unlike with a cell phone, which you exchange for a new one every two to three years, for a device placed on the electrical network you can't go back every two, three years and replace it.

At the same time, you can't be locked into one provider for 10 or 15 years because a lot can change. And that to me is one of the big risks of some solutions. That's why our proposal was for the solution to be interoperable, open and without vendor lock-in.

All this done, it was necessary to have the networks, the connectivity. Qualcomm, through its partnerships with large communication groups, now has global coverage. We hope to bring this to Brazil later this year. With this, we solve the issues of device, interoperability and connectivity.

BNamericas: What exactly will potentially be brought to Brazil this year?

Finizola: Instead of the chip in the device talking directly to the ERB [terrestrial antenna], it talks to a communication relay in the air, which can be a balloon, for example, or a GEO, MEO or LEO satellite constellation.

Editor’s note: GEO, MEO and LEO stand for Geostationary Equatorial Orbit, Medium Earth Orbit and Low Earth Orbit, respectively. 

In our case, for technical and price reasons, among other issues, we’re partnering with GEO, which is the 3GPP Release 17 standard for IoT NTN connectivity.

The satellite provider needs to offer coverage in Brazil, for example, and as a service; a service in which devices can be connected through this new satellite communication platform. What Qualcomm did globally was broker commercial agreements to offer what we call Qualcomm Aware.

It's a global connectivity agreement. But the customer can ultimately decide whether they will use Qualcomm Aware partners or any other operator. It's just a matter of programming the SIM card.

BNamericas: In other words, we’re basically talking about operators like SES, Viasat and others that operate GEO satellites in Brazil starting to offer the direct-to-device connectivity.

Finizola: That's it. Any of them. We hope that soon we will have 5-10 services and the customer will be able to choose between many providers to suit their needs.

BNamericas: What’s the outlook for the Brazilian market?

Finizola: For this service, it’s both a regulatory issue and an economic one of market demand. These variables are currently being addressed. We believe we've already solved the commercial equation. 

We hope that the rest will be resolved this semester so we can have the service available as quickly as possible in Brazil.

In many countries in the northern hemisphere, this coverage is already working.

Commercial agreements are important in enabling this. The price perspective is fundamental in these propositions. But the satellite is, for me, the great enabler of NB-IoT [narrow band IoT]

BNamericas: Why?

Finizola: Satellite provides everything that NB-IoT requires: communication with very few bites and low power consumption. 

Constant connectivity with long-lasting battery. That's all we need to connect the field where terrestrial networks are lacking. Be it machines, an animal, a lighting control, a transformer, a solar panel supervision, a climate station, a tower.

BNamericas: How about the satellites in medium and low orbits, such as Starlink and OneWeb?

Finizola: GEO satellites are ‘stationary’, so technologically it’s much simpler to solve the devices’ battery life equation.

These LEO and MEO solutions are very important, but they're more focused on broadband. Tomorrow, it could be the smartphone. Then, if they embrace IoT with the same quality as GEO solutions, we'll be there as well.

BNamericas: In addition to Neoenergia, are there any conversations with other companies in the sector?

Finizola: We have conversations with several other companies. We see a lot of interest from utility companies. We hope to start testing in a couple of months. The integrators we’re working with for the first commercial NTN devices are Constanta, Tecsys, Novus, and M2M Telemetria.

Here in Brazil, we put a lot of emphasis on doing this first for utilities. We have a long track record of engagement with them, it’s a sector that is very interested in this type of solution, it has demands around connectivity, and we see a very positive scenario for implementing these solutions.

But we’re going to several other sectors as well next year. Oil and gas, agriculture, tracking in general, and so on.

The great paradigm of IoT from now on, with this technology, is not having to worry about device connectivity because this will be possible everywhere.