Inseego is in the midst of testing how its products can work with products from CommScope, with an eye toward putting the two together in order to sell them to enterprises that want to build their own private wireless LTE networks.

"Inseego is a cellular radio equipment (modem/gateway/router) provider, and is seeking to partner with Ruckus, a CBRS small cell access point provider. As a part of this partnership, we need to fully test network setups and interoperability between Inseego routers and the Ruckus access point," Inseego wrote in a recent filing with the FCC, asking for permission to test operations in the recently freed 3.5GHz CBRS spectrum band. CommScope recently acquired Ruckus's parent company.

"Upon completion of the testing, Inseego plans to pursue a commercial partnership with Ruckus to sell bundled CBRS solutions to enterprise customers looking to operate on private LTE networks," Inseego wrote in its FCC filing.

"We are working with CommScope testing our CBRS solutions with their Ruckus CBRS LTE product line," an Inseego representative confirmed to Light Reading. "More to come," the representative added.

A combination between Inseego and CommScope makes sense. Inseego builds a variety of portable hotspots and cellular modems and gateways, including the Skyus 300 router for industrial IoT applications that's named in the company's FCC filing. CommScope, meanwhile, builds a wide range of wireless networking equipment, including equipment for the 3.5GHz CBRS band. That particular equipment stems from CommScope's acquisition of Arris, which acquired Ruckus in 2017. Ruckus was an early leader in the CBRS market, and its equipment powers a wide range of initial operations in the CBRS band.

It's also no surprise that Inseego and CommScope are targeting the market for private wireless LTE networks. A wide range of service providers and equipment suppliers have targeted private wireless as one of the cellular market's major growth areas. Interest among enterprises in private wireless networks – networks that are purpose-built for a specific application or set of applications and operate outside of the commercial wireless networks offered by the likes of AT&T and Verizon – is being driven by the availability of unlicensed spectrum like the CBRS band, the falling cost of wireless equipment from the likes of Ruckus and others, the growing demand among workers for secure mobile access to information, and enterprises' desire to control their own communications networks.

— Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading | @mikeddano