Cradlepoint announced that it has extended its Cellular Intelligence to 5G within NetCloud, its management, orchestration, and endpoint control platform for Wireless WANs, according to the company's press release.

Public transit organizations will now have the ability to gain insights into their 5G networks that will enable the connectivity needed to transform mass transit operations and passenger experience for buses, shuttles, ferries, as well as light rail, commuter, and long-haul trains.

"With our recent introduction of the R1900 5G ruggedized router, mass transit organizations can take advantage of a 5G solution designed specifically for the needs of buses, shuttles, ferries and light rail systems.” said Donna Johnson, SVP of Product and Solution Marketing at Cradlepoint. “However, hardware is only a part of the overall solution. New Cellular Intelligence for 5G software features within NetCloud give mass transit organizations unique insights into the cellular environment so they can provide enhanced quality of experience across tens of thousands of vehicles.”

The new NetCloud Cellular Intelligence for 5G features include:

• 5G cellular health data with alerting and reporting capabilities – real-time and historical view of cellular health and uptime across the entire network as well as on each individual router or modem interfaces. Information across the entire vehicle fleet is viewed in intuitive at-a-glance dashboards that give administrators a complete picture of their cellular health, while identifying any areas that might require attention. 

•  5G cellular data usage tracking and forecasting – ability to track and forecast data usage across vehicles, multiple carriers, and different billing cycles to prevent costly overages. An enhanced cellular data dashboard within NetCloud Manager provides tracking, forecasting, graphs, and alerts on data usage pooled across all vehicles associated to a particular account, or for a single vehicle. 

• Location tracking with integrated 5G coverage map – enables transit organizations to track the location of buses, ferries, and trains (even through tunnels) while also viewing the health of available 5G cellular coverage across their entire region. 

• 5G optimized speed tests – provides an accurate view of real-time cellular performance including upload/download throughput, latency, and jitter for the purposes of installation and troubleshooting.

The NetCloud Service provides centralized management, multi-carrier connectivity, and extensibility for AVL, fleet, and operational applications. NetCloud Manager provides a single portal that enables full lifecycle management of an in-vehicle network and enables the deployment of 5G connectivity with integrated public WiFi.

"We already had an ongoing relationship with Cradlepoint and, thanks to the positive experience, we decided to use Cradlepoint routers to broaden the scope of our solution which was imperative during the time of COVID-19,"  said Gianni Scarfone, general director for Azienda Trasporti Bergamo. "We were able to swiftly activate passenger counting systems and disseminating information to operators and the public via apps and displays installed on the outside of buses and at stops —all of this helped to offer our customers trusted information during the time of a global crisis. Extending the fleet connection and network monitoring system has qualitative leap in innovation to our infrastructure for now and into the future.”

"Wherever Seattle-area metro buses travel throughout the Puget Sound region, reliable cellular connectivity supports the applications and devices needed to operate smoothly," said Russ Mattichak, a network engineer for King County Metro. "Rider experience is optimized and maintained with features such as digitally posted arrival times, and digital fair payment, which all rely on seamless network connectivity provided by Cradlepoint routers that helps keep buses on schedule. Cradlepoint NetCloud and the web portal was a big, big piece of why we went with Cradlepoint."