RUT271 & RUT976 5G Routers: Entering a RedCap 5G World

Teltonika’s networking product portfolio features an extensive selection of 4G routers, as well as a growing selection of 5G routers, such as the recently launched RUTM51. While none would argue that 5G is the future, exactly how your industry should take full advantage of the many benefits of 5G isn’t quite as clear-cut.

As a result, not everyone is ready to jump ship before feeling confident that the value gained from 5G outweighs the cost of transitioning your infrastructure.

That’s understandable, but here’s our question—what if you could have the best of both worlds? A more affordable version of 5G that lets you take advantage on the benefit you need, without paying extra for the benefits your IoT solutions have no use for?

This innovation is ready to rumble, and its name is RedCap. To understand it and its value, we first need to understand why it was needed in the first place. 

Why RedCap Exists: The Friction Between 5G & IoT

You see, 5G as a communication technology is not quite a single, unified standard, but rather a spectrum of technologies. The first section of this spectrum to establish itself was 5G New Radio (5G NR), which is what most people associate with 5G. Within 5G NR are three types: low-band, mid-band, and high-band. Here’s a quick summary:

Low-band 5G operates below the 1 GHz frequency band and offers broad coverage and better penetration, but at lower speeds. Mid-band 5G, the most widely-used category, operates between 1 GHz and 6 GHz and offers a better balance of coverage and speed. High-band 5G operates above the 24 GHz band and provides speed and capacity, but with limited range and penetration. 

Each of these three types is suitable for different areas of applications, which are standardised as massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC), enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), and ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (uRLLC). Without getting into too much detail, mMTC focuses on connecting a large number of end devices over wide area, eMBB focuses on providing high throughput, and uRLLC focuses on low latency. 

To summarise their relationships in very broad strokes, we can grossly generalise that mMTC is best-served by low-band 5G, eMBB by mid-band 5G, and uRLLC by high-band 5G.

The problem is that these neat categories aren’t a great fit for the world of IoT. Your networking solution may and often will want to prioritise networking features that fall outside of these divisions, and will be left with no 5G router accurately meeting their needs.

On top of that, because all three categories differ but overlap in functionality under the spectrum of 5G NR, this technology is very complex: it requires sophisticated network infrastructure, advanced hardware, and support for multiple deployment scenarios. As you can imagine, with greater complexity comes a higher price.

RedCap 5G: Higher Flexibility & Lower Cost

The answer is 5G NR-Light, also known as RedCap 5G. No, not the mushrooms, and not even the Anglo-Scottish goblins, but Reduced Capability 5G. In essence, RedCap 5G occupies a more flexible space between the 5G NR divisions discussed above.

RedCap 5G reduces complexity, making it a more suitable technology for IoT applications, while keeping the greater flexibility of 5G NR. However, it’s important to note that it supports only standalone (SA) 5G architecture, and does not support non-standalone (NSA).

In practice, RedCap 5G offers 5G-calibur low latency while keeping capacity high and complexity low. And because it is low, RedCap’s pricing is also lower.

This finally brings us back to the RUT271 and RUT976 5G routers—Teltonika’s first cellular RedCap 5G routers. Let’s dive in.

Under the RedCap Hood: Key Features of RUT271 & RUT976

The RUT271 and RUT976 5G routers are comparable in many ways to their older cousins: the RUT241 and RUT956 4G routers. The difference, of course, is RedCap 5G.

Mobile and wireless communication

These cellular RedCap devices both feature 5G sub-6 GHz SA communication and are backward compatible with LTE Cat 4. In terms of speed, you can expect up to 223 Mbps when operating in 5G Redcap, and up to 150 Mbps when operating in 4G. In addition, these mobile routers boast Wi-Fi 4 and higher wireless end device capacity, with the RUT271 supporting up to 50 end devices and the RUT976 supporting up to 100.

Protocols & security

RUT976: GNSS

Lastly, the RUT976 5G router boasts GNSS functionality for location services and time synchronisation—an integral feature for industrial IoT solutions in which trackability is a must.

RedCap 5G Deployment & Use Cases

To recap, RedCap 5G technology excels at providing the low latency and high capacity you can expect from 5G, while maintaining speeds more comparable to 4G—resulting in a lower price point and reliable performance under a high density of connected devices.

One class of application for this makeup are industrial IoT solutions with real-time data transmission and a large number of end devices within a private network.  

An example can be found in the intricate world of smart waste management—a market valued at $2.2 billion in 2023 and projected to reach $8.3 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 15.6%. Solutions in this sector involve smart trash cans equipped with sensors which detect a given bin’s load in real-time, allowing for optimised waste collection schedules and operations.

This efficiency is enabled via the connectivity of the RUT271 RedCap 5G router. There is more depth to how this works, of course, so check out this use case for more details. 

We cannot discuss the benefits of 5G-calibur low latency without also discussing its potential in manufacturing solutions. In a study forecasting sales enabled by 5G, manufacturing was the leading industry—estimated to reach $4,771 billion by 2035. For comparison, 2^nd place went to the information and telecommunications sector, estimated to reach $1,493 billion—less than a third of manufacturing’s projected sales.

The reason for this is quite simple: manufacturing has the most to gain from 5G capabilities, which can ensure peak efficiency in any automation, predictive maintenance, and Industry 4.0 operations. Not as a result of ultra-high cellular speeds and throughput, but of low latency and high capacity. 

With the RUT976 RedCap 5G router, there’s no need to overspend on the full spectrum of 5G capabilities to achieve its trademark low latency. Check out this use case to see how this device enables innovative manufacturing solutions​—affordably.

Of course, these are but a couple of myriad applications these RedCap 5G routers can enable seamlessly. The full scope is far wider, and full of the promise of RedCap: minimised latency and complexity, and maximised capacity and affordability!

Will You Brave the RedCap 5G World?