The Alliance for private networks originally launched in 2016 as the MulteFire Alliance, a standards body providing a solution for deploying private wireless networks by defining LTE to operate in unlicensed and shared spectrum. Growing alongside the industry, the organization became what it is today: the Alliance for private networks, championing the global industry adoption of private networks by educating the ecosystem and providing publicly available tools that ease deployment. Following are the original specifications, developed by the Alliance and available to the public.
About MulteFire Release 1.1 Specification
The MulteFire Release 1.1 specification optimized IoT, providing support for additional spectrum bands and general enhancements to Release 1.0. MulteFire 1.1 represented an evolution of MulteFire 1.0 technology with the aim to further improve its performance and enhance its potential. Access the 1.1 specification here.
Specification Capabilities
- Enhanced MulteFire 1.0 Broadband Services in the Global 5 GHz Unlicensed Band
- Delivers more robust mobility, faster uplink data transmissions, improved downlink coverage, and adds SON capabilities
- Added Additional Spectrum Bands
- Including MulteFire 1.9 GHz (for the unlicensed part in 3GPP defined Band 39), also known as sXGP in Japan
- Expanded IoT Services with Low Power Wide Area Support
- 800/900 MHz with NB-IoT-U and 2.4 GHz with eMTC-U support
About MulteFire Release 1.0 Specification
Release 1.0 specification, a key milestone in bringing MulteFire technology to market, is based on 3GPP Releases 13 and 14, and defined LTE to operate in unlicensed and shared spectrum while ensuring fair sharing of spectrum with other users and technologies. By removing the requirement for an anchor in licensed spectrum, MulteFire enabled new use cases and new deployments able to take advantage of the benefits of LTE technology. Access the 1.0.1 specification here.
Specification Capabilities
- Builds on elements of 3GPP Release 13 License Assisted Access (LAA) for the downlink and Release 14 enhanced LAA (eLAA) for the uplink
- Includes enhancements for operation solely in unlicensed spectrum such as robust procedures for mobility, paging, initial access and efficient uplink control channels
- Implements Listen-Before-Talk for fair coexistence with technologies using the same spectrum such as Wi-Fi and LAA, as well as co-existence between different MulteFire networks
- Defines a Neutral Host access mode where the same deployment can serve multiple operators, as well as a traditional access mode for a single network operator
- Enables access authentication with or without a SIM card to provide services for subscribers from different types of service providers, including mobile operators
- Supports a range of LTE services, including Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and high speed mobile broadband
