LPWANs are a new generation of telecommunication radio networks for IoT applications, offering high capacity, excellent coverage in built-up areas and very low energy consumption in battery-powered sensors. In contrast to mobile broadband (LTE) handling traffic for data consuming applications in mobile devices (online gaming, YT, video calls), the LPWANs do not offer wide communication bandwidth but come with low power consumption and very long autonomous life cycle in end devices (sensors). In IoT applications it means many years of operation and low costs of maintenance. It does not require external power and communication links, it speeds up deploying of large, dense sensor networks. This feature makes fast and easy of data acquisition in the city, building automation or in industrial applications. It can be used for managing infrastructure, environment, climate, building management, process measurements. The LPWAN apart from 5G and mobile broadband, is going to be one of the main factor driving telecommunication industry and Internet of Things in the following years. We offer products in different LPWAN standards.
LoRa
LoRa – is one of practical implementations of LPWAN concept with the specification developed by LoRa Alliance. The standard is becoming spread world wide and there are currently numerous pilot and commercial projects run over the world. The net requires dedicated base stations but it works within unlicensed radio frequencies. This enables to deploy LoRa network by operators or entities who do not have a license for radio frequencies required by mobile broadband (LTE).
NB-IoT
NB-IoT – another implementation of LPWAN based on mobile networks using tiny radio channels in 4G/5G mobile broadband (LTE). The specification is developed by 3GPP, a collaboration organization between telecommunication companies. Such networks can use existing or future LTE base stations, which is especially useful in built-up areas and indoor applications. It requires SIM cards and uses radio channels in licensed frequencies within LTE bandwidth.
LTE-M
This type of networks offer more bandwidth than ones above but from the energy utilisation point of view, it comes with higher level of energy consumption. It is useful for some specific IoT application where the smallest energy levels are less important but amount of data requires more bandwidth (i.e. IoT devices with simple voice services, utilisation profiles in smart metering ). The standard is based on infrastructure of mobile networks using radio channels in 4G/5G mobile broadband (LTE). It requires SIM cards and uses tiny channels in licensed frequencies within LTE bandwidth.
LPWAN advantages in IoT applications
There are numerous advantages of using LPWAN networks in IoT applications:
- battery powered sensors operating for years without power and communication wires – it ramps up implementation, lowers maintenance cost and enables seamless implementation of dense networks
- simplified solutions architecture – sensors send the data directly to base stations with no intermediate devices, communication hubs, data collectors or local getaways; the sensors just simply work in wide networks
- increased robustness and security, solutions simplicity – radio traffic goes over dedicated base stations, the operators assure worldwide availability
- rich IoT vertical applications and data analytics delivered from the cloud – new type of services based on dense sensor networks
Vertical Apps @ Cloud
The Data Analytics Apps (a specific IoT vertical app) offer a wide range of visualisations and analytics. It is easy to provide them to any location in the world through the biggest clouds, namely Amazon Web Services, Azure or Google Cloud. This also means that data can be easily written, backuped and stored in hundreds of highly reliable and scalable data centers according to the customer’s needs. That way we provide vertical applications to any locations and the users do not require investing in any infrastructure. The customer just gets it within the subscriptions. We partner with global cloud vendors to offer the most scalable and effective solutions, including specific requirements regarding the location of data processing and storage.