Furukawa Electric LatAm, part of one of Japan’s largest industrial groups, has selected Quectel Wireless Solutions to provide IoT modules that enable stable, secure, long-range connectivity for devices in the utilities and agribusiness markets in Brazil. The company chose Quectel’s EC25-AU LTE and BG96 Mini PCIe Cat-M1 communication modems to enable radio access technology (RAT) functionality for Furukawa’s solution access terminals.

The history of the Furukawa Electric Group began more than 130 years ago in Japan and the group has since become a global corporation with diversified activities in the segments of metals, light metals, telecommunications, automotive systems and energy, among others. The group has formed an international network of industries in countries in Asia, North America, Europe, Africa and Latin America. There are now more than 100 affiliated companies and modern development laboratories, prepared to generate new technologies and products within the group.

Quectel modules were selected to enable LTE and narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) connections for Furukawa’s digital radio system. This system features multi-point topology operating on a licensed frequency of 250 MHz, in compliance with Brazilian regulator Anatel’s Resolution 555 of 20 December, 2010. The system is composed of a base radio transceiver (eNodeB) with evolved packet core (EPC) control on the board. Such a system allows the aggregation of radio frequency channels, making applications more flexible in different scenarios. This extends from the use of channels with narrow bandwidth to cover areas with low data demand, such as low bandwidth IoT communication, to a greater demand from equipment around eNodeB, such as for Wi-Fi traffic.

“We have focused on providing our agribusiness and utilities customers with access to our digital radio system and LTE and NB-IoT connectivity by adopting the Quectel modules,” explains Francis Freitas de Mattos, a hardware developer at Furukawa Electric LatAm. “Without the Quectel products, an entire hardware and firmware development project would have been needed in order to use LTE Cat 4, Cat M1 and NB-IoT communication protocols.”

“We selected Quectel because of the fast development time, the product quality and the local support it offered us,” added Freitas de Mattos. “We’re now providing high data connection in a stable, secure and long-range way for our utilities and agribusiness customers.”

Ricardo Simon, Quectel Latam Director, adds: “We’re delighted to be providing our EC25-AU LTE and BG96 Mini PCIe Cat-M1 communication modems to Furukawa to help its agribusiness and utilities customers access LTE and NB-IoT connectivity. We’re pleased to have accelerated the timescale for customers in Brazil and helped Furukawa avoid the need for a full hardware and firmware development project.”