Orange joins LoRa Alliance board

In September 2015, Orange announced it would build a LPWAN network based on the LoRaWAN protocol to provide a foundation for a range of smart city IoT applications. Before making this decision, Orange tested the LoRaWAN protocol in Grenoble, France, with Semtech and more than 50 partner companies to ensure the network would provide the type of connectivity needed by customers to develop their own smart city applications and run them on the Orange network without having to build their own expensive infrastructure.

Orange is now joining Semtech and other Alliance board members, including IBM, Cisco,  Bouygues Telecom, Actility, Augtek, Homerider, Kerlink, KPN,  Proximus and Sagemcom, and Alliance members Schneider, Bosch, Murata, DU Emirates Integrated Telecom, Swisscom, Tata Telecommunications, Telkomsel and others to drive the global success of the LoRaWAN protocol, a global, carrier-grade LPWAN that provides long-range, low-power connectivity between sensors and base stations. The LoRaWAN protocol enables IoT innovation through an openly available specification, certified secure interoperability, open business models and a strong global ecosystem.

Marc Pegulu, Vice President and General Manager, Wireless and Sensing Product Group, Semtech, commented: “We are happy that Orange has decided to join the board of the LoRa Alliance and become an active member in shaping the LoRaWAN open networking protocol and driving its adoption worldwide. Having someone on board with their type of networking expertise, leadership and reach into most European countries will help ensure that the various sensors, modules, base stations, networking components and software applications offered by the more than 300 member companies in the LoRa Alliance have a common communications protocol and work well together to provide customers with the solutions and network coverage they need for their IoT, M2M and smart city applications.”