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What is DECT-2020 New Radio (NR), and how big a deal is it? (2021)

• rpruiz 3y ago
  Hmm. The DECT-2020 technology faced challenges that hindered its widespread adoption and prevented it from taking off. One of the reasons for its limited success was the emergence of competing technologies like 5G, which gained more traction and investment, overshadowing DECT-2020.
• _joel 3y ago
  Anyone else think of a cordless phone when the saw DECT?
  • Maakuth 3y ago
    This is an evolution of the same radio techonology that was used in those cordless phones.
    • jprd 3y ago
      DECT is awesome for wireless business headsets. Further range, clarity and less interference compared to BT.
      • Nextgrid 3y ago
        Most importantly, not having to deal with BT software shittiness. BT is actually OK when it works but getting it to work and not stumbling on edge cases is the tricky bit, suggesting the RF side of it is sane and adequate but let down by terrible software. BT wouldn’t be so bad if it was all abstracted away by a dongle that handled all the communication and presented itself to the OS as a dumb audio device.
        • kwhitefoot 3y ago
          > presented itself to the OS as a dumb audio device. Not much use if what you want to do is send a file.
          • nopurpose 3y ago
            zmodem :)
            • kwhitefoot 3y ago
              Those were the days!
  • Taniwha 3y ago
    The bands are still around and still being used (though much smaller in trhe US than elsewhere) The main difference between DECT and the more free for all 2.4/5G bands is that in DECT the protocols are specified and designed to coexist and work together (there's no choosing a wifi channel, DECT is smart and will spread out by itself, both in time and freq)
  • kazinator 3y ago
    DECT is a surprisingly complex and capable system, which has been used for metropolitan cellular service. https://www.rcrwireless.com/19980105/archived-articles/telecom-italia-gets-permission-to-use-dect https://www.rcrwireless.com/19980105/archived-articles/telec... [1998] In the DECT Wikipedia page: There has been only one major installation of DECT for public access: in early 1998 Telecom Italia launched a wide-area DECT network known as "Fido" after much regulatory delay, covering major cities in Italy. The service was promoted for only a few months and, having peaked at 142,000 subscribers, was shut down in 2001. 142K subscribers isn't quite your kitchen and den phone any more. :)
    • vidarh 3y ago
      > DECT is a surprisingly complex and capable system '99-'00 I worked on a Linux-based tablet where the first iteration used a DECT extension for data (DECT MMAP)... Wifi was not yet dominant enough to be the obvious winner.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• Aachen 3y ago
  Anyone here feeling qualified to answer the question in the title? The article describes various aspects, such as that the new DECT version uses modulation and other mechanisms also present in cellular NR/5G, which sounds like a big step forward but, at the same time, no difference in user experience either. The networks get more secure and efficient by the sound of this vendor publication, but is there any user-visible chance? Or are the under-the-hood changes "a big deal" as they put it?
  • p_l 3y ago
    I suspect the big deal is combination of range, density, and effective bandwidth for given density, which is explicitly something they compare against other IoT wireless protocols.
  • femto 3y ago
    Latency is probably the crucial specification here. LTE includes low latency IoT modes, but last I heard getting them to work was an active area of research. Maybe DECT-2020 is the plan B?
• noodlesUK 3y ago
  I'm not too knowledgable in this space, so my main questions are what are the advantages of DECT-2020 NR over something like LoRA (which I understand has license problems), zigbee, or 802.11ah (which is rarer but has less of a license issue)? Why is this part of the 5G spec?
  • Havoc 3y ago
    I suspect this is aimed at faster speed than lora if they’re talking about directly connected to backhaul
  • lelanthran 3y ago
    Lora is different from the others, in that it is for low-data-long-range. All those others are to connect a device to a local network. Lora is to connect to a remote network. DECT (which I last saw in devices that I was programming in 2005), zigbee and 802.11 are all local network mediums. 802.11ac maxes out at maybe 60-80m, zigbee maxes out at around 80m and DECT (last I used it) maxed out at maybe 100m. Lora still works up to 15000m LoS.
    • neilalexander 3y ago
      802.11ah, not 802.11ac.
      • lelanthran 3y ago
        good catch :-) In respect of 802.11ah, it's still under 1000m, outdoors, IIRC. Great for the use-case of covering your factory in sensors, not so for the use-cases that LoRa is intended for.
  • buescher 3y ago
    From the article: "think: a million devices per square kilometer". Range of DECT-2020 NR+ is comparable to Bluetooth Low Energy Long Range, which is plenty for a lot of applications but not in the same class as LoRa. But it's much higher bandwidth than LoRa and purportedly has determistic low latency, at least sufficient for audio, and they're marketing it for mission-critical and safety-critical applications.
• martyvis 3y ago
  For a standard published 4 years ago, I'm surprised my googling isn't showing up any reference boards or the like that would attract wannabe hobbyists like myself. Is there some fundamental problem why it doesn't seem to have made it to market?
  • usrusr 3y ago
    How many companies are there that actually implement 5G, as opposed to buying a chipset from those that do? Hardly surprising that this capability is slow to trickle down from the huge market of cellular to reuse of protocol concepts in the local wireless niche. It's one thing to select a gaint for riding on the shoulder of, another to actually do the climbing.
    • gorkish 3y ago
      > How many companies are there that actually implement 5G, as opposed to buying a chipset from those that do? The number of companies actually building stuff is far eclipsed by the number of companies amassing IP hoards around the tech. Modern standards are an absolute tarpit; total waste of time to drive your career into that nonsense IMO. It's cool tech, but good luck with that -- you cant even start to build anything or use it without an army of lawyers and bankers clearing the path.
  • datpiff 3y ago
    Adoption of technology usually creates hobbyist boards, not the other way around
• ano-ther 3y ago
  It seems they have just released a developer kit https://www.nordicsemi.com/Nordic-news/2024/01/The-nRF9161-SiP-and-DK-are-now-available-for-developers https://www.nordicsemi.com/Nordic-news/2024/01/The-nRF9161-S...
  • rpaddock 3y ago
    I have a couple of these in hand. What they don't tell you there is you need to sign an NDA to get the most modern DECT versions of the software, because "it is still in development". I'm waiting for that signature now. Also you have to dig through the data sheet to find out that the GNSS only works with LTE. If you want to use DECT GNSS can't be used, because it is part of LTE. Can't do both DECT and LTE at the same time.
• buescher 3y ago
  AFAICT the upside here is the same as the downside, and similar to LoRa: you get to have your own infrastructure, but you also pretty much have to have your own infrastructure.
  • wkat4242 3y ago
    Having your own infrastructure is not really a barrier if you look at WiFi. I kinda expected mmwave 5G to become an in-office replacement for WiFi: Completely managed by the provider, plenty of spectrum available and seamless roaming to public 5G. But it didn't take off at all and most mobiles no longer even include mmWave antennas here in Europe (think Samsung). Nor do laptops. It would have been pretty ideal for this kind of indoor usecase. I think part of the reason is that companies still really prefer to run their own infra.
    • ale42 3y ago
      mmWave doesn't cross walls very well, what's the point if you have to install infrastructure inside buildings anyway? Plus, indeed, companies really prefer to have their own stuff, also because of reliability (what if the 5G carrier has a problem? It's rare but can happen), and simplicity (why using a VPN that passes through a public network and goes back to the company network, adding dozens of ms of delay in the process, if you're anyway on-site?)
      • wkat4242 3y ago
        I was thinking the provider would install 5G access points inside the building yes. For this the limited penetration is a real benefit because it means you can place more access points without them interfering. Of course the network would not use a VPN but MPLS or something.
        • ale42 3y ago
          > Of course the network would not use a VPN but MPLS or something. So basically the company's devices are provisioned with specific (e)SIM cards that would make the traffic routed to the company's network by the telco directly? If I would be a network admin in a big company, I'm not sure I'd feel well with that, as the provisioning/management of SIM cards out of the company's control. It would also mean that a rogue employee of the telecom operator would be able to access the internal network of the company. Attack surface seems too big.
• wkat4242 3y ago
  Interesting, but DECT is already dead. We've already replaced the entire DECT infrastructure for WiFi phones with MS Teams in our company. Not nearly as reliable or functional but we make do with it.
  • kalleboo 3y ago
    It sounds like it's bring pivoted away from phones and towards IoT in places like factories, with a focus on being more reliable than WiFi in places where it really matters
  • ale42 3y ago
    How do they work in terms of reliability and user experience (including sound quality)? I never tried the kind of infrastructure you have, but my experience with wifi-based calling (we use the Jabber application from Cisco) is largely suboptimal (most calls have sound artifacts, from super-short "holes" as missing packets which are mostly inoffensive, to heavy issues like no sound for 500 ms, or artifacts due to heavy-compressing codecs).
    • wkat4242 3y ago
      It's pretty mediocre. But usable. DECT was much better but our company wanted to remove the avaya PBXes from all sites.
  • nabla9 3y ago
    It sounds like you did not read the article. It's not for phones.
  • mysteria 3y ago
    Are those WiFi phones plugged into the wall or are they cordless? I believe the advantage of DECT is that the phones consume much less power compared to WiFi which makes sense if they're on battery. Many of the IP phone vendors use DECT instead of WiFi for this reason and they sell POE DECT transcievers.
    • 3y ago
• _kb 3y ago
  Technical details and further background: https://www.etsi.org/technologies/dect https://www.etsi.org/technologies/dect Full standard looks to spread across ETSI TS 103 636 part 1 to 5 available here: https://www.etsi.org/committee/1394-dect https://www.etsi.org/committee/1394-dect
• throw0101b 3y ago
  > The simple answer is that although it's early days for DECT-2020 NR, it promises to fill a genuine 'gap' in the wireless IoT market for massive machine-type communication. An area where failure is not an option and could put at risk automation processes, critical infrastructure, livelihoods, if not lives themselves. With regards to reliability, Wifi 8 seems have been dubbed "Ultra High Reliability" (UHR), as that will be its area of focus: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11bn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11bn > This amendment defines modifications to both the IEEE Std 802.11 physical layer (PHY) and the IEEE Std 802.11 Medium Access Control (MAC). The amendment adds an Ultra High Reliability capability to a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). The Ultra High Reliability capability is defined for both an isolated Basic Service Set (BSS) and overlapping BSSs as: > *At least one mode of operation capable of increasing throughput by 25%, as measured at the MAC data service Access Point, in at least one Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) level (Rate-vs Range), compared to the Extremely High Throughput MAC/PHY operation, and > *At least one mode of operation capable of reducing latency by 25% for the 95th percentile of the latency distribution compared to the Extremely High Throughput MAC/PHY operation and > *At least one mode of operation capable of reducing MAC Protocol Data Unit (MPDU) loss by 25% compared to the Extremely High Throughput MAC/PHY operation for a given scenario, especially for transitions between BSSs. * https://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/tgbn_update.htm https://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/tgbn_update.h... * https://www.ieee802.org/11/Reports/802.11_Timelines.htm#TGbn https://www.ieee802.org/11/Reports/802.11_Timelines.htm#TGbn
  • mytailorisrich 3y ago
    > An area where failure is not an option and could put at risk automation processes, critical infrastructure, livelihoods, if not lives themselves. Which is exactly 5G's sales pitch, which is designed for low latency and high reliability aimed at critical applications like factory automation, remote surgery, self-driving cars, etc. And there is currently a push for 5G private networks. So it remains to be seen if this gets any traction.
    • supertrope 3y ago
      Anything needing high reliability is plugged in. Actual remote surgery involves an on site backup surgeon, and redundant private wired links.
• zackmorris 3y ago
  I always wanted "wireless wires" that would look like two usb/ethernet/hdmi/etc dongles and just provide one or more connection types at a desired bandwidth, regardless of protocol. They'd be encrypted by a private key set by touching them together, or installing one file of random bytes and arbitrary size to each as a usb drive (either as a separate usb plug or a physical switch that enables storage mode). So users could plug one into their computer and the other into a drive/router/television/etc and it would "just work" without having to fiddle with 802.11 setup friction. I wonder if DECT-2020 New Radio (NR) could be used for this? I wanted to invent this in the early 2000s when I first saw wireless usb over wifi and thought "well that's terrible", akin to the disbelief I felt in the '90s when I saw that usb connectors were flat instead of circular and couldn't believe that someone would come up with something so ridiculously annoying. But after 20 years of something so obvious not being invented (probably due to monopoly/regulatory effects), along with the hundreds of other things I wanted to invent in another life, I can comfortably release this idea into the public domain.
  • ianburrell 3y ago
    The bandwidth of DECT-2020 NR is 80 Mbps. It wouldn't be useful for any of those except for USB2. HDMI is high enough bandwidth that it can't be done over Wifi and needs to use 60GHz radios. What would be useful is light-based networkig, Lifi, which can do Gbps within one room. One problem with "everything" radio dongles is that different protocols have different requirements. In particular, how they handle errors and latency. Ethernet doesn't retry but could handle latency from low-level or high-level retries. Wifi does retries cause it works better than IP level. HDMI is streaming with errors or latency from errors causing visible artifacts.
    • zackmorris 3y ago
      Hmm ya good points. Well maybe "fiberless fiber optics" where each end would have a plugin for an arbitrary length of fiber optic cable, normally about 10 feet long, that would run up to the ceiling and optionally exit a lens to talk to the other end through open air, with maybe a range of 100+ meters or something. If someone could make one for under $100 that could handle 10K HDMI/100 Gbps, I'd buy it. Ideally with radio fallback on something like NR for partial functionality if the view gets blocked. I want something that "just works". Thinking about this further, I'd like to see a resilient fiber optic standard with a 180 or 360 degree fisheye lens where bandwidth falls off by angle of alignment. So light bouncing off the walls might give 1 Mb/sec, but direct line of sight would give Gbps to Tbps speed. It's 2024 for crying out loud. I'd like to see some of these trillion dollar tech companies actually innovate for once instead of milking decades-old technologies and sucking up all the available capital to keep us delivering fast food instead of inventing this stuff in our parents' basement like in the late 1900s when people had any leisure time or disposable income at all.
• joecool1029 3y ago
  So I read the article and know their goal is different but I saw the headline and actually thought of Japan when I saw this since PHS was shutdown around the same time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Handy-phone_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Handy-phone_System (think DECT you could roam between base stations with)
  • wolrah 3y ago
    > (think DECT you could roam between base stations with) DECT does support roaming between base stations. Most DECT base stations are designed as standalone devices, but Yealink, Snom, and other vendors do offer multi-cell solutions scalable to hundreds of base stations and thousands of devices.
• micheljansen 3y ago
  Interestingly DECT seems to be alive and kicking in some areas. In my circle DECT baby monitors are popular, because they people don't want them to be connected to the internet.
  • mdekkers 3y ago
    My work headset is DECT, I always buy callcenter-grade headsets. DECT allows me to wander around the house as much as I like or need to during calls - kitchen, bathroom, balcony, whatever - with high fidelity audio. Bluetooth and other wireless technologies are significantly limited in range.