PoLTE, a startup that recently turned to the 5G location tracking field, has closed the door.
There are few details, but the former vice president of finance of the company said on his LinkedIn page that the company was acquired by an unknown Fortune 500 company. The former PoLTE executive contacted by Light Reading declined to provide details, although the former CEO of the company is now listed as a consultant to Qualcomm in his LinkedIn profile. Qualcomm officials did not immediately respond to questions on this topic.
According to TechCrunch, PoLTE raised $6 million for the first time in 2017 and another $12.5 million in 2019.

As FierceWireless pointed out, the company was founded by Russ Markhovsky and initially focused on E911 services, but in 2018 it turned to providing 4G location tracking services for Internet of Things (IoT) services. This change coincided with the appointment of Ed Chao, the technical director of MetroPCS before it was acquired by T-Mobile in 2013 and the new CEO of the company. Chao replaced John Dow.
PoLTE boasts a cloud based positioning service that uses 4G LTE signals to track IoT devices. Company executives believe this method is more effective than GPS and other options.
Earlier this year, Chao began to discuss PoLTE’s new 5G product. “He wrote on Telecom.com, a sister publication of Light Reading, in February:” The use of cellular cloud positioning (C-LoC) technology can overcome the challenges inherent in such traditional technologies. “C-LoC technology is emerging as the ‘next generation’ GPS, and can be deployed at the edge of the network – whether in the public cloud, private cloud or directly into the network – or as an xApp of the RAN intelligent controller (RIC) in the open RAN infrastructure.”
However, PoLTE reportedly stopped its service in September.
This triggered competitors to snatch the detained customers of PoLTE. “PoLTE provides their customers with location tracking using cellular connectivity. Since they no longer provide these services, their customers need a new partner to track and monitor their critical assets,” Link Labs wrote in a recent press release. “If you are already a PoLTE customer or are considering PoLTE, Link Labs can help you.”