Sequans Communications S.A., a provider of chips and modules for 4G and 5G broadband, critical, and massive IoT, has received a multi-million-dollar grant from the French government to support technologies the government has determined to be strategic for the national interest. Sequans’ proposal was accepted in the ICT and 5G category, aimed at securing national sourcing of strategic technology for critical connected objects in industrial, medical, scientific, and other markets. Sequans will lead a consortium of seven French companies tasked with developing 5G technology solutions for these critical IoT applications. The funding has been made available as part of a nationwide recovery plan to mitigate the economic impact of the global pandemic.
Georges Karam, Sequans CEO was gratified that their proposal was chosen to receive this funding. This will strengthen their ability to bring critically important 5G connectivity solutions with advanced capabilities to market as quickly as possible. The award, together with the funding received from private 5G partnerships already in place, will enable them to intensify their efforts on development of the broadband and critical 5G IoT solutions they are currently working on.
The consortium members include Alsatis, a broadband service provider; Amarisoft, a telecom software company; CEA-Leti, France’s major technology research institute pioneering micro and nanotechnologies, an aerospace and defense company; AW2S (Serma Group), a specialist in embedded and RF systems and telecom infrastructure equipment provider; SNCF, the French national railway company and its subsidiary ITNOVEM dedicated to digital transition.
SNCF monitors very closely the current development towards a sovereign 5G dedicated to the needs of the company. The CRIIOT Project Leads by SEQUANS fits perfectly into this trajectory. Sebastien Kaiser, e.SNCF Connectivity and Networks Director said that they are delighted to work with CRIIOT’s partners to define, experiment machine to machine solutions and their compatibilities with our industrial constraints coming from their diverse use cases, from predictive maintenance, rail network surveillance to real-time remote operations.
Antoine Roussel, Alsatis CEO further added that after a decisive fight to substantially reduce the digital divide, Alsatis now benefits of the tremendous impulse generated by the 5G ecosystem. They intend to put their expertise and their technical infrastructure at the service of French industry’s renewed needs and sensitive sectors such as public health. Along with this dynamic, Alsatis contributes to the innovative project CRIIOT and thus helps building a French value chain to meet the specific and professional applications.
Emmanuel Sabonnadière, CEA-Leti’s CEO said that CEA-Leti is eager to provide its solid expertise on mmWave communications for 5G industrial networks to enable low power and critical 5G IoT solutions and pioneer compact antenna arrays to help the French industry on the road towards the next 5G+ generation in the mmWave spectrum. Nicolas Breant, AW2S COO feel that AW2S/Serma is proud to be an active contributor for this project and to show that 5G ecosystem exists through the different CRIIOT partners in France. Their goal is to provide innovative solutions to address 5G markets and new associated use-cases.
The consortium will be focused on delivering end-to-end solutions for 5G public and private networks powered by 5G release 16 and beyond with a particular focus on enterprise markets.
