In recent times, the need to provide advanced remote support to field-based workers has come into sharp focus. Many new tasks in our work life can benefit from mixed reality technology. Devices like the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and the Dynamics 365 Remote Assist platform offer a game-changing solution to this problem.
However, in many environments where this technology could be most useful, being able to provide the ubiquitous Wi-Fi connectivity for real-time voice and video communication is a serious challenge.
Enter Celona: capable of delivering the enhanced wireless coverage on a clean RF spectrum and predictable application performance with our private LTE solution. In this document we will share how to:
Connect the Microsoft HoloLens 2 to a Celona network using a USB modem, and
Configure a Celona MicroSlicing policy to enforce application-level performance metrics for throughput, latency and packet error rate.
Connecting Hololens 2 to a Celona private LTE network
The HoloLens 2 headset runs a specialized version of the Windows OS which includes support for USB modems that work with Microsoft RNDIS drivers.
In our lab testing, we have found that not all RNDIS drivers are equal, with only one of the USB adapters we tested being properly recognized by the HoloLens 2, so far.
The USB-C adapter by Quanta has support for private spectrum for cellular wireless, such as CBRS (LTE band 48) in the United States. It also provides support for the 5G n48 band, which is fantastic news. At just 41 grams or 1.5oz, this USB-C modem from Quanta can be easily attached to the HoloLens headset without affecting important ergonomics and user comfort.
For additional details on this specific adapter, please ping us at hello@celona.io. Here is a quick picture on how it can be installed with a Microsoft HoloLens - in this case with a 3D printed accessory created by one of our partners, attached to the headset.
Creating Application Policy using Celona MicroSlicing
The built-in Dynamics 365 Remote Assist application within HoloLens 2 connects the field-based engineers to remote support operators using Microsoft Teams. In our testing, we confirmed that the ports used for voice and data traffic for the Remote Assist application - enabling us to create the relevant Celona MicroSlicing policy in order to enforce specific service levels for the application at hand.
To create the MicroSlicing policy required within Celona Orchestrator, face of the Celona platform, we will:
Create a
Device Groupfor HoloLens 2 users,Define the
Applicationfor Remote Assist, andAssign the new
MicroSlicing policyto both.
Log in to your Celona Orchestrator account, select Device Groups from the left-hand menu, and click Create Device Group.
Once you have named the group and selected which devices will be included click Add to save. Now select Applications from the left-hand menu and click Create Application. The Remote Assist application uses UDP ports 3478 to 3481 for the voice and video data, these are entered as below;
Remote Start Port: 3478Remote End Port: 3481
Click Add to save your new application. We can now move on to creating the MicroSlicing policy by choosing MicroSlicing in the left-hand menu.
Because the multimedia data has variable bit rate, we have chosen Non-GBR with Interactive Multimedia QoS class. Next, choose the Device Group and Application you have previously created and click Save to apply your Celona MicroSlicing policy to the network in real-time.
After this configuration, any new HoloLens 2 device that's onboarded to the network would be applied the relevant QoS policy when interacting with the Dynamics 365 Remote Assist application.
Thanks to this integration, field-based teams can now enjoy an interference cellular wireless network indoor and outdoors - private to the enterprise - at levels of reliability that has not so far been observed on private enterprise wireless networks.
To see the Celona solution in action, check out our guide.