Mobile startup Cohere Technologies has raised $35 million in funding in a Series C round led by Australian operator Telstra. Cohere will use the funds to introduce its patented new modulation technology.
Cohere Technologies specializes in modulation technologies that it says can unlock wireless network capacity. It will use the fresh cash to bring its new modulation scheme, called Orthogonal Time Frequency and Space (OTFS), to market as a way to help operators deal with the capacity crunch.
Telstra Corp. Ltd. (ASX: TLS; NZK: TLS), which led the round, will be among the first to benefit from the new backhaul technology. The carrier said in a release that it would begin trials to test the OTFS capability in its network in the coming months.
"We already have strong backhaul and access networks and anticipate that by working with Cohere we can improve this further as we move into a highly connected future and a 5G world," Mike Wright, Telstra Group managing director networks, said in the release.
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Cohere -- which is not to be confused with the cable access startup Cohere Networks, which later changed its name to Gainspeed -- is positioning its patented OTFS modulation as integral to the future of 5G, which will necessitate more complex support from the cell sites to the backbone network. The company says it has applications for wireless backhaul and fixed wireless access both indoors and outdoors. (See 5G Use Cases, Pre-Standards Groups Proliferate and Fastback & Sub10 Merge for Millimeter Future .)
jburton, User Rank: Lightning 3/25/2015 | 10:30:22 AM
Re: 5G backhaul Cohere Networks was not acquired by Gainspeed, Cohere Networks changed their name to Gainspeed. I believe that was due to the presence of yet another Cohere in the telecom space - a CLEC: http://www.coherecomm.com/index.html
KitKilgour, User Rank: Light Beer 3/24/2015 | 3:25:23 PM
Backhaul - inband or outband... Amongst the talk about '5G', there is a quite a bit predicting that the backhaul will need to include wireless in-band spectrum because of the difficulty of finding enough spectrum to carry both the cellular signal to the handset and potentially even more aggregated data on the backhaul. Even if linked to some of the '5G' indsutry or standardisation groups, Cohere will have to work hard to get their technology included in a standard
sarahthomas1011, User Rank: Light Beer 3/24/2015 | 12:20:23 PM
5G backhaul Everyone who is googley-eyed over 5G cannot forget the backhaul, which will be even more important and complex in this next-gen network. I predict we'll see more consolidation, funding for startups and new technologies like OTFS crop up over the next few years as vendors work to meet this challenge.
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