Sequans Eyes the World with Cat-1bis, and Formalizes Its New IP Licensing Model

In October 20, 2025, Sequans Communications announced the launch of its Calliope 2 GC02S1 Worldwide Module. The GC02S1 is a LTE Cat-1bis module based on Sequans’ own Calliope 2 SQN3530 chipset, and supports 16 different Long Term Evolution (LTE) bands to connect to cellular networks worldwide. Such modules allow a device to obtain a cellular connection wherever there is a LTE network, enabling the design and manufacture of a single Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) product, for sale to customers globally. The GC02S1 joins its North America-only and Europe-only “sibling modules” as the third member of Sequans’ Calliope module portfolio. The GC02S1 is at the sampling and pre-orders phase of availability with general sales expected to commence in 2Q 2026.

Just one week prior on October 14, Quectel launched its EG800AK-JP LTE Cat-1 bis module at CEATEC 2025. The EG800AK-JP is based on ASR Microelectronics’ single-mode ASR1605 chipset, and offers frequency band support for Japan only. With its domestic coverage, the EG800AK-JP is being touted by Quectel as targeting smart metering and asset tracking applications, and as a natural replacement for 3G, which is soon to be defunct in Japan. KDDI and SoftBank shuttered their 3G networks in March 2022 and April 2024, respectively, while NTT DOCOMO’s 3G sunset is fast approaching in March 2026. Japan has been considered a hold-out market for Cat-1bis, with carriers harboring concerns over device reception quality, but China’s Quectel is eager to allay those fears.

Sequans positions itself as a cellular Internet of Things (IoT) chipset specialist. The manufacturer breaks down its chipset and module product lines into “Low Speed,” “Mid Speed,” and “High Speed.” Technology-wise this equates to Cat-M and Narrowband (NB)-IoT, LTE Cat-1bis, and LTE Cat-4, marketed via Sequans’ Monarch, Calliope, and Cassiopeia product families, respectively; each of which contains multiple original chipsets and module designs based on those chipsets. Cat-4, in particular, hits a sweet spot for the IoT, providing a huge amount of throughput and performance, for a very reasonable cost to the device Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customer, while still at a high enough price to provide a good profit margin for the module vendor and semiconductor manufacturer.

In the world of consumer smartphones, Cat-4 is considered very slow and effectively useless, and is at the bottom end of LTE’s capabilities offering 150 Megabits per Second (Mbps) on the downlink and 50 Mbps on the uplink. This is in stark comparison to the 3.5 Gigabits per Second (Gbps) and 844 Mbps downlink and uplink speeds of the latest LTE Cat-26, standardized in The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 15 in 2019. But Cat-4 is more than fast enough for most IoT applications, being highly suited to gateway and router-type devices, and being so much faster than is normally needed that it is not even the most popular cellular IoT technology. Instead, the most popular is Cat-1 with its 10 Mbps uplink and 5 Mbps downlink speeds, and its single-antenna twin Cat-1bis, which sacrifices signal strength to achieve an even lower price.

LTE’s normally mandatory dual antennas exist to guarantee a sufficiently strong reception to deliver the higher-end LTE throughput rates. But having two receive antennas is not necessary for the modest speeds of Cat-1, which functions reliably as long as there is reception of any strength. It is this connectivity market that IoT specialist Sequans is doubling down on with its latest GC02S1 module. ABI Research’s most recent M2M Embedded Cellular Modules market data report expects 61 million Cat-4 modules to be shipped in 2025. But Cat-1 shipments will be more than 3X greater at 190 million units, increasingly driven in the years to come by single-mode options as 2G and 3G networks are sunset, and by the cheaper Cat-1bis variant.

But what of Cat-M and NB-IoT, the cellular technologies dedicated to the IoT, that were created for low throughput device types that could never be affordably connected before? Cat-1bis will never be able match the power efficiency of those dedicated Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) technologies, but while LPWA required new cellular network overlays to be deployed, Cat-1 and Cat-1bis effectively work wherever there is LTE; LTE having long been the most widely available cellular technology. Sequans, a dedicated developer of Cat-M and NB-IoT, too, states that “In many markets, LTE-M has a fragmented support — especially across Europe and Asia — creating barriers for device manufacturers seeking uniform performance and global scalability.”

Obtaining market position in the IoT for Cat-4 and Cat-1bis matters, as both technology markets are gateways to their highly-anticipated next-generation replacements, 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap) and enhanced RedCap (eRedCap). 5G RedCap and eRedCap are currently being marketed as “future-proofing” to complement LTE, instead of LTE becoming a fallback for RedCap; such is the strength of LTE in the IoT today. Sequans was one of the first semiconductor manufacturers to publicly announce the availability of eRedCap chipsets, purportedly due in 2H 2026, with there being two ways to secure the market position it desires. The first is by becoming a leader in the sale of chipsets and modules, and the second is to become a leader in Intellectual Property (IP) for its design.

Sequans has often found itself in a difficult position. It is an IoT semiconductor manufacturer that is regarded by many cellular module vendors as a competitor, as Sequans also makes modules using its own chipsets. Meanwhile, large semiconductor manufacturers have discouraged module vendors from using Sequans, relegating Sequans’ status to that of a module vendor with an in-house chipset supplier, rather than a serious semiconductor manufacturer competitor. Unexpectedly, the latter situation helped the manufacturer, when in August 2024, Qualcomm purchased the IP for Sequans’ LTE chipset designs. Qualcomm had already ceased development for LTE, but decided it did not wish to lose out on LTE’s ever-extending life span in the IoT.

That deal has now resulted in the formalization of licensing as a long-term revenue strategy for Sequans, with the establishment of its Technology IP Licensing and Engineering Services division this September. With its baseband modem LTE IP already sold (but with Sequans able to use it in perpetuity), its new licensing endeavors are based on designs for: 1) analog Radio Frequency (RF) front end transceivers, 2) baseband modems and Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) for 5G RedCap and eRedCap, and 3) 5G protocol stack software. Sequans is also offering “engineering design services, supporting customization and integration into customers’ products and platforms.” Frenemy Qualcomm’s own Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) division is a major part of its turnover, and Sequans hopes to follow that example.

As hardware component suppliers, Quectel and Sequans could not be more different. Quectel is the global leader in cellular module shipments for the IoT with a 50% global market share and extensive module manufacturing facilities; while Sequans ships low single-digit millions of units annually via outsourced manufacturing. Sequans develops its own chipset IP, which it uses exclusively, while Quectel uses others’ chipsets to build modules on almost every platform, but notably not Sequans’. Quectel is incentivized by turnover through volume, while Sequans seeks value through margins. Yet both are angling to be power players in Cat-1bis today, and eRedCap tomorrow. If Sequans RedCap IP proves tempting to other manufacturers, it could find its way into the chipsets that Quectel uses, despite Sequans marketing its own modules on the strength of being an all-Western alternative.