F3 Wireless Launches the First off the shelf IoT Modem Management Agent (MMA) Software Package for Embedded Linux

Minneapolis, Minnesota – October 21, 2019 – F3 Wireless, a leading innovator of IoT solutions, announced the industry’s first IoT Modem Management Agent (MMA) software for embedded Linux. Adding cellular data to a product is a complicated process. A modem can be on or off, connected or not, roaming, denied registration, in a sleep mode, misbehaving, or any other number of states. Each one of these states may require different behavior or response that is dependent on upper level application requirements. A service is needed to control the modem, the mobile data channel, and its related features. This software intelligence is what we refer to as the Modem Management Agent, or MMA.

The major benefit of this first of its kind software, is that it allows companies to bypass the time-consuming exercise of having to learn all the corner cases and special situations presented by cellular radios, cellular networks and related device features such as power management. The MMA software program runs on an IoT focused embedded or standard computer and manages and directs the cellular radio.

“Many of our customers using embedded Linux spend hundreds of hours having their software developer learn the subtle arcana on cellular networking. This often results in many cycles of trial and error, even after the product is released to the market causing major product launch and ramp up problems..” said Chris Anderson, CTO at F3 Wireless “We’ve rolled all our knowledge of cellular into a software package to allow our customers to focus on their core business and let us take care of the radios.”

Having an off the shelf solution through F3 Wireless’ MMA software, helps companies take advantage of these time and money savings components:

• Comprehensive engine: Advanced state machine that manages the power modes, configuration, initialization, APN management, registration, roaming, and mobile data enablement, with robust error recovery.
• Control and configuration: Control current power state, registration state (or force roaming to certain networks), mobile data state, or set a custom APN, all through a simple key-value configuration structure that is applied in real-time.
• Transparency to modem and network status: Expose the detailed state of the cellular system in a simple key-value format, including power/registration status, technology (2G/3G/LTE), SIM/modem ID, signal quality, and networking/IP parameters.
• SMS message store: Easily send/receive messages through a local message store system. The MMA automatically receives incoming text messages and stores them to the inbox, and sends any messages in the outbox.
• Networking: MMA software works whether a company is running a Linux PC with a USB connection to the modem, or using a tiny microcontroller with no IP stack capability. It can handle attaching the mobile data context to a Linux machine so it shows up as a standard network interface, or make use of the internal modem stack with the MMA NetworkStack module, which exposes the stack to an application.
• HAL: Allow a single application/system to be deployed with more than one cell radio without changing application software. Once support for a new modem is added to the MMA, systems can use any supported modem that includes the features required for the application. The MMA acts as an abstraction layer to let the application software always work the same way, regardless of modem attached.

For more information about F3 Wireless visit www.f3wireless.com, or visit F3 Wireless at the Telit Roadshow November 6 & 7 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.