Iridium announces collaboration with Nordic Semiconductor

Iridium announced its collaboration with Nordic Semiconductor for early integration of its Iridium NTN Direct service into Nordic’s LTE-M/NB-IoT modules and chipsets. Nordic Semiconductor is a global leader in low power wireless connectivity solutions including cellular IoT, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, and Thread and is trusted by world leading brands across the consumer, industrial, and healthcare segments. Nordic’s complete cellular IoT solutions are ideally suited for connected devices for global tracking, utility metering and industrial remote monitoring and control. Iridium NTN Direct is planned to be the world’s first truly global NB-IoT service. The product of Iridium’s Project Stardust initiative, Iridium is developing this capability in coordination with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project’s recent decision to accept Iridium enabling enhancements in its next release. This would allow Iridium’s satellite service to be accessible by any device with a 3GPP release 19 compliant chipset. Nordic plans to incorporate the Iridium NTN Direct service’s truly global communication capability as part of its 3GPP release 19 NTN roadmap, taking advantage of the established reliability and experience of the Iridium network.