Communications through the network must be power-efficient and allow devices to operate on small batteries that could last over 10 years.
Devices must be able to connect over a long distance (up to tens of kms in rural areas) and connectivity should have deep penetration capabilities to include indoor use cases.
LPWAN target an objective of chipset costs below 5$ and connectivity subscription fee below 1$, notably by reusing license-free spectrum band or shared with cellular technologies.
Once deployed, LPWAN devices must operate for several years without human intervention.
A single LPWAN gateway should provide connectivity to thousands of devices distributed over kms.
Deployment of both the end-devices and the network infrastructure must stay be quick and inexpensive.
These new LPWAN technologies complement the landscape of network technologies by offering a very long range and low power solution. The counterpart is a very low bandwidth for data transport, still sufficient to cover a growing number of use cases.
• Antenna range: 3 to 50 km (urban / rural)
• Sensor autonomy: 5 to 15 years
• Rate: 0.1 to few hundreds kbits / sec
• Subscription: one to few dollars per year
Founded by the American “Semtech”, the LoRa Alliance brings together operators and manufacturers with the aim of promoting networks compatible with the LoRaWAN® modulation.
A device connected to a LoRaWAN® network can technically change from one operator to another for commercial reasons or roaming agreements by taking advantage of the consortium.
Sigfox deploys a network of its own with its own proprietary protocol. It guarantees simple and fast deployments for devices integrating a Sigfox chip. Plus, a full interoperability between covered countries avoids roaming management for their users.
Sigfox currently has a slight worldwide lead in terms of connected devices and geographical coverage.
Introduced in 2017, the 3GPP promotes solutions based on cellular networks. Carried by dedicated licensed frequencies (thus not congested), these networks are supposed to ensure a guarantee of transport of the data and to guarantee compatibility and interoperability between networks.
Today, 46 operators worldwide support NB-IoT and 13 LTE-M.
Integration to the IP World, thanks to compression, fragmentation, … enable IP/TCP on any LPWAN networks.
End-to-end security, IP tunnel from the service to the end application platform. Consistency with the security. Policy of your own IT.
Don’t try to implement interoperability or security with bespoke patches now. They won’t scale. Build your IoT on clean standard foundations to keep calm when it’s time to scale!