Wi-SUN Alliance and JUTA announce certification program for JUTA communications profile

TOKYO, May 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Japan Utility Telemetering Association (JUTA), a Japan-based Non-Profit Organization for telemetering industries and Wi-SUN Alliance (a global ecosystem of member companies seeking to accelerate the implementation of open standards-based Field Area Networks (FAN) and the Internet of Things (IoT)) today announce the availability of the JUTA profile certification program. The JUTA profile specification corresponds to the layer 1 (PHY) and Layer 2 (MAC) of the JUTA wireless communication specification for telemetering called U-Bus Air. JUTA and Wi-SUN Alliance have collaborated to use Wi-SUN Alliance's expertise in robust and rigorous testing and certification on radio products.

Through this collaboration, JUTA products will leverage Wi-SUN's global ecosystem of test labs to perform certification of PHY and MAC as defined in the JUTA profile specification. These products, related to telemetering for city gas, propane gas and water, as well as the devices and communication modules that constitute them, are targeting customers that have adopted the JUTA specification. The Test Equipment (TE) and the Certification Test Bed Unit (CTBU) for the JUTA profile certification program have been prepared by Wi-SUN Alliance and have been introduced into multiple testing institutes in Japan. Companies considering creating U-Bus Air products can perform PHY/MAC testing to receive JUTA profile certification.

• About the JUTA Profile

The JUTA profile is a wireless communication specification using IEEE802.15.4 standards based PHY- and MAC-Layer of JUTA's U-Bus Air protocol.

The Wi-SUN Alliance has developed PHY and MAC conformance and interoperability test specifications as part of the JUTA profile certification program, which enables multi-vendor interworking of various devices that are compatible with JUTA's U-Bus Air protocol.

"We are very pleased that the JUTA profile certification program, based on the test specifications jointly developed by the Wi-SUN Alliance and JUTA, became ready for launch," said Mr. Takachi Rochi, Chairman of the JUTA Standardization Committee (TRY 24 Inc.). "We hope that the U-Bus Air will be widely used by this certification."

"The Wi-SUN certification program has more than 20 million installations in smart metering of electric power in Japan, and is highly regarded as a program that can build a reliable and interoperable wireless network," said Dr. Hiroshi Harada, chairman of the Wi-SUN Alliance board of directors (Kyoto University, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology; NICT). "We are pleased to help third parties such as JUTA take advantage of our expertise in defining conformance and interoperability test suites, and of the rigorous processes we have introduced into test labs globally to enable certification.  I am convinced that Wi-SUN certification programs will lead to the wider spread of IoT in the future and contribute to the realization of a sustainable society."

"The JUTA profile specification describes the interoperability of PHY and MAC layers needed to build a telemetry system using U-Bus air," said Hideki Endo (Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd.), a leader of the Wi-SUN Alliance JUTA WG, which formulated the conformance and interoperability tests for the JUTA profile. "The JUTA certification program will support multi-vendor U-Bus Air products, and city gas and LP gas companies will be able to procure gas smart meters and wireless systems for IoT services stably and inexpensively. Prior to this certification, Tokyo Gas introduced a home monitoring service that allows customers to remotely check door locks, open windows, whether family members are at home, etc. using a wireless system equipped with the JUTA profile."

• About JUTA

JUTA is a non-profit organization of about 85 organizations including Utility providers, device manufacturers and system integrators. JUTA aims at contributing to the realization of a low carbon society by promoting visualization of energy usage. JUTA also works on standardization of technology for telemetering system for the purpose of ensuring the safety and security of the users, promoting home monitoring services, and rationalizing and streamlining business operations of companies. U-Bus Air, under standardization by JUTA, is a wireless communication standard for telemetering that enables ultra-low power consumption and multi-hop communication. It adopts world standard IEEE802.15.4 specifications for PHY and MAC layers using 920 MHz band radio.

• About the Wi-SUN Alliance

The Wi-SUN Alliance is a global non-profit member-based association made up of industry leading companies. Its mission is to drive the global proliferation of interoperable wireless solutions for use in smart cities, smart grids and other Internet of Things (IoT) applications using open global standards from organizations, such as IEEE 802, IETF, TIA, TTS and ETSI. With more than 200 members worldwide, membership of the Wi-SUN Alliance is open to all industry stakeholders and includes silicon vendors, product vendors, services providers, utilities, universities, enterprises and municipalities and local government organizations.
For more information, please visit http://www.wi-sun.org.

Wi-SUN Alliance and the Wi-SUN Alliance logo are trademarks of the Wi-SUN Alliance.

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SOURCE Wi-SUN Alliance