Qualcomm has hit the headlines recently for its re-entry into the macro RAN infrastructure market, courtesy of Open RAN, but whenever it ventures out of its smartphone kingdom, it faces a new set of competitive challenges, so it is wise to keep its options open. That policy of expanding its architectures both up and down in terms of product size and performance sees it unveiling a module that it hopes will accelerate sluggish progress in large-scale Industrial IoT deployments; as well as a reference design targeting that difficult market for cellular, the non-smartphone consumer device. The 315 5G IoT Modem was designed for IIoT applications that require high performance, resilience, ruggedized devices and low energy consumption, such as utilities, manufacturing,…