Ericsson adopts new tech for emergency situations

Global telecommunications company Ericsson has announced it will adopt a more advanced form of wireless technology for internet of things to use with China Unicom and Qualcomm Technologies.

At the 2017 Mobile World Congress Shanghai, the companies demonstrated two scenarios of the CAT-M1 VoLTE application, including the fire alarm trigger panel and GPS emergency tracking device.

People who are trapped in a fire could use it to alert emergency services and property management team. The stranded people could describe the situation to a rescue team via voice call service attached to the service so that appropriate and real-time guidance is provided.

The eMTC (CAT-M1) technology is a wireless technology which provides higher mobility, broader coverage, more flexible deployment but with lower costs and lower latency. It has a slighter larger bandwidth than the NB-IoT that can support voice communication.

Ericsson went through an internal strategic update in April and formed the digital services business unit. Ulf Ewaldsson, the newly appointed head of this unit, said earlier that they will look for possible takeovers to boost the growth of digital services business. He said the tactic will be basically the same for China while at the same time they also seek to partner with local leading players such as Huawei.