The growth of LoRa and the LoRaWAN open protocol

Vertical market evaluation was a key component to the whitepaper research. ABI Research found that the LoRaWAN protocol is the leading license-exempt low-power wide-area (LPWA) network technology addressing massive IoT vertical markets, which include metering, cities, asset tracking and logistics, commercial building automation, and home. In addition to vertical market overviews, the white paper explores five active LoRaWAN network implementations based on multi-RAN architectures:

• Orange enables device and data management for Cellular and non-Cellular LPWA network technologies, with the Orange Live Objects platform.
• JRI-MySirius uses sensors leveraging LoRaWAN and a Cloud-based application platform to provide turnkey temperature monitoring for fixed and mobile assets.
• Ercogener developed an end-to-end asset tracking solution that supports the LoRaWAN protocol and is leveraged by France's national state-owned railway company.
• MultiTech’s programmable gateway is the original gateway integrating LoRa for industrial IoT applications with support for Ethernet, 2G, 3G, 4G-LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth/BLE, and GNSS.
• Chevron implemented a LoRaWAN network infrastructure to digitise a series of oil and gas fields.

“The future of IoT connectivity requires flexible solutions that address a wide spectrum of vertical IoT applications, use cases and device types,” said Marc Pegulu, Vice President of IoT Applications in Semtech’s Wireless & Sensing Products Group. “LoRa and the LoRaWAN open protocol enable interoperability and seamless connection between the many devices that can exist in a single environment. As a technology provider, our job is to create solutions that make deployment and use easier for people."

The study concluded that LoRa devices will play an important role as a key LPWA network technology now and in the future as the IoT continues to connect physical devices to digital assets. Additional key takeaways highlighted in the white paper include:

• 5G and non-cellular network technology will co-exist: In the future, LoRaWAN and 5G will co-exist in the form of hybrid networks or multi-RAN architectures.
• Full 5G will take longer than expected: 5G is not capable of addressing massive IoT in the near term. 5G networks and the device hardware supporting the Release 17 specifications will not be commercially available until early 2024.
• LoRa leads in LPWA technology: By 2026, LoRa is expected to be the leading non-cellular LPWA network technology and will account for over a one-fourth share of all LPWA network connections and more than half of all non-cellular LPWA connections. Total non-cellular LPWA connections in 2026 are expected to reach 1.3 billion.
• LoRa is moving beyond enterprise applications: Consumer applications leveraging LoRa are beginning to take off. Traditional architecture is witnessing competition from LPWA network technologies, providing direct device-to-Cloud connectivity for a growing number of smart home devices.