PARIS, France -– July 16, 2019 –Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS) announced that SoftBank Corp. (“SoftBank”), a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp. and a leading telecommunications operator in Japan, has validated Sequans’ Monarch chip for NB-IoT operation on its network. 

“Sequans Monarch is one of the most mature solutions in the industry,” said Hironobu Tamba, vice president, head of Smart IoT Division, SoftBank Corp. “The validation of Monarch for NB-IoT operation is an achievement is of key importance, especially for customers who want to deploy battery-powered IoT devices, such as meters and sensors, cost-effectively.”

“New NB-IoT devices based on Monarch can now launch quickly with this official stamp of approval from SoftBank,” said Georges Karam, Sequans CEO. “Our customers are getting ready to launch a wide range of very interesting IoT devices, including a children’s tracker and a smart city security device, and we look forward to seeing them come to life very soon.”

Validation on the SoftBank network proves Monarch’s reliability and technological excellence as an NB-IoT chip solution.Sequans’ Monarch is the world’s most highly optimized LTE-M/NB-IoT chip platform. It provides full support for power saving mode (PSM) and extended discontinuous reception (eDRX) to enable the long battery life needed by many IoT use cases, and it provides the enhanced coverage modes that extend coverage for deep-indoor and remote deployments. Monarch comprises baseband, RF, power management, and RAM in a single package. Monarch also supports advanced features such as programmable RF filtering for global band support in a Single-SKU™, and proprietary dynamic power management technology, enabling industry-leading, rock bottom low power consumption of 1 micro amp.

The validation of Monarch for NB-IoT operation follows validation for LTE-M operation received from SoftBank last year.