Myriota and ETSI team to boost NTN IoT satellite comms standardisation

Just weeks after announcing plans to bolster its fleet with an extra 16 satellites with enhanced second-generation payloads, Myriota, the provider of global satellite connectivity optimised for internet of things (IoT) devices, has joined the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) to help define products based on the 3GPP standard that could add high-quality ubiquitous satellite coverage to all cellular IoT markets.

Established in 1988 by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations, ETSI is seen as an important player in global standardisation for telecommunications technology, and is an organisational partner of 3GPP, the telecommunication standards organisation responsible for developing standards for LTE, 4G, 5G and narrowband IoT.

Founded in 2015, Myriota’s space-based network is designed to deliver scalable, affordable IoT data services and energy-efficient hardware in sectors such as agriculture, logistics, water management and environmental conservation to monitor and collect critical sensor data. The company is on a mission to democratise satellite IoT access, delivering critical field-based monitoring services to a global market. Its network is designed specifically for the IoT industry.

The development and adoption of standards is seen as allowing Myriota customers to use off-the-shelf devices that can be added to the low-cost, low-power satellite network, benefiting from interoperability and economies of scale, and driving innovation.

By embracing standards as part of its IoT connectivity platform, Myriota plans to “seamlessly” add satellite connectivity alongside existing terrestrial networks using low-cost, low-power, off-the-shelf cellular devices and modules. In addition, it says it can now apply its satellite communications expertise to contribute to the definition of 3GPP products, while also working with other members in the ecosystem to drive adoption and expand markets for the satellite-based IoT.

“The 3GPP family of telecoms standards has been one of the most successful technology developments in history, acting as a catalyst for global, interoperable mobile communications,” said Myriota CEO Ben Cade. “We are delighted to have joined ETSI and look forward to working closely with the ecosystem.”

As the partnership was signed, Myriota pointed to the use of its HyperPulse platform, which it calls a world-first implementation of a 5G non-terrestrial network (NTN) technology that uses beam hopping, activating beams where they are needed according to traffic demands. This approach is designed to optimise power consumption in battery-powered IoT devices while enhancing the efficient use of satellite resources and scarce spectrum.

As it was admitting Myriota to its fold, ETSI also announced that it had established a Software Development Group OpenOP (SDG OOP) dedicated to the development of an open source Operator Platform allowing for 6G testbed federation, along with standardised capability exposure application programming interfaces (APIs).

Explaining the reasons for the move, ETSI said that as next-generation networks continue to evolve towards 6G, the need for interoperable, open, developer-friendly solutions across telecoms, cloud and artificial intelligence domains has become increasingly urgent. ETSI SDG OOP aims to address this challenge by developing a standardised, open source platform that it says will simplify network service and resource exposure, and enable “seamless” federation across operator platforms.

Based on the EU-funded Sunrise-6G project, SDG OOP will use existing GSMA requirements and APIs for federation, and will expose Linux Foundation Camara service APIs. It will also enable integration with a broad range of southbound platforms such as Kubernetes, 3GPP Network Exposure Functions, ETSI Multi-access Edge Computing and NFV Orchestration.