LPWAN

LPWAN is a type of wireless net work, similar to Wi-Fi, LPWAN can be set-up by just anybody. However, there are differences between such networks. Wi-Fi is a low distance high bandwidth network that allows you to send lots of data in a short amount of time in a short distance. It's pretty much an all purpose network. You also have 5G, 4G, 3G, LTE and so on, these networks are provided by a telecom provider or network operator. They cost money to use and quite a bit of electricity so much so that they are not quite applicable for IoT devices. Then you have Low-Power-Wide-Area-Networks (LPWAN) and the one we usually refer to when talking at MXC is LoRaWan. This network is just as easy to setup as the Wi-Fi at your home. In contrast to Wi-Fi, LoRaWan has an average radius of 20 kilometers from the base station, which means that you have a 20 kilometer network from one base station which is about the same size as a wireless router for Wi-Fi and it has limited bandwidth, which means it's not going to be a network you are going to be streaming movies on, rather this is a network that's great for sending small amounts of data over long distances. Lora uses very little electricity, meaning a sensor on a LoRa Network is able to survive roughly 10 years on a single battery charge. This is a drastic comparison to 4G, 3G even 2G networks. You can compare this with your mobile phone, don't use it for a day but leave the mobile network on and you will notice that the battery drains relatively quickly, regardless of the fact that you don't use it. However, if you turn airplane mode on, turn off Wi-Fi & Bluetooth, then you're going to see that your phone lasts quite a bit longer, especially if you're not using it throughout the day. This is similar to what would happen with the Lora sensor. Comparing all the networks described above Lora is definitely a winner when it comes to IoT devices, because the sensors can last about 10 years on a single battery charge as mentioned, has a wide are network and it has just enough bandwidth for that type of sensor information.