Discovery Park District at Purdue wins award for its private wireless project

PRF’s “Private Cellular Network as a Service” was named the overall winner on July 25 for International Data Corp.’s inaugural IDC Future Enterprise Best in Future Connectedness North America Awards program.

PRF’s project uses a private mobile network from Celona to blanket the 400-acre, $1 billion Discovery Park District, a mixed-use development with residential, industrial and commercial buildings adjacent to Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus. The network provides connectivity to enable commercial and smart city uses throughout the work-play-live district.

David Broecker, chief innovation and collaboration officer for PRF, said in another release, “With the rise of unlicensed cellular spectrum and private mobile networks, communities like Discovery Park District now have the power to chart their own course in terms of what advanced services and applications they can deliver to their members.

“From students getting home broadband for the first time to the Industrial IoT, the sheer diversity of customers and application requirements demonstrates how CBRS-based technologies, or technologies based on Citizens Broadband Radio Service, serve businesses, schools, industrial organizations and municipalities alike.”

About Purdue Research Foundation

Purdue Research Foundation supports Purdue University’s land-grant mission by helping the university improve the world through its technologies and graduates. Established in 1930, PRF is a private, nonprofit foundation. The foundation helps patent and commercialize Purdue technologies; builds places to encourage innovation, invention, investment, commercialization and entrepreneurship; and makes equity available to students to finance their Purdue education. For more information on licensing a Purdue innovation, contact the Office of Technology Commercialization at otcip@prf.org. For more information about involvement and investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org.