5G RedCap has made its Middle Eastern debut, with e& (the artist formerly known as Etisalat) commissioning Ericsson to add the lower complexity 5G variant to its 5G Standalone network in the UAE. Reduced Capability (RedCap) has been difficult to pitch. Early marketing positioned it as the 5G equivalent of LTE Cat-NB or Cat-M, but it is several orders of magnitude more powerful than these IoT-focused protocols. Most of RedCap’s current appeal lies in its longevity, where implementers can rest assured that an industrial machine that requires a 10 or 15-year support contract will absolutely still have 5G network support from the MNO – even if they might have started sunsetting their 4G networks by that point. We are currently…