How long does it take for a technology to go from being unknown to becoming an international standard?
With LoRa officially approved by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as an international standard for the Internet of Things, LoRa has its answer, which has taken about a decade along the way.
LoRa’s formal approval of the ITU standards is significant:
First, as countries accelerate the digital transformation of their economies, in-depth cooperation between standardization groups is becoming more and more important. At present, all parties are seeking win-win cooperation and committed to establishing collaborative work on standardization. This is exemplified by the adoption of itU-T Y.4480, a new international standard that demonstrates a shared commitment between ITU and LoRa.
Second, the six-year-old LoRa Alliance claims that the LoRaWAN standard has been deployed by more than 155 major mobile network operators worldwide, is available in more than 170 countries and continues to grow. In terms of the domestic market, LoRa has also formed a complete and vigorous industrial ecology, with the number of industrial chain enterprises exceeding 2000. The adoption of RECOMMENDATION ITU-T Y.4480 is further proof that the decision to choose LoRaWAN as a standard in the market has had an impact on this large group.
Third, LoRa was officially approved as an international standard by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which was a milestone in LoRa’s development process and laid the foundation for further development of LoRaWAN on a global scale.
From Exclusive Technology to Factual Standards to International Standards
LoRa was almost unheard of, even by industry insiders, before hooked up with Semtech in 2012. However, two or three years later, LoRa made a full show in the Chinese market with its own technical advantages, and developed rapidly in the world, with a large number of application scenarios landing cases.
At that time, nearly 20 or more LPWAN technologies had been launched in the domestic and international markets, and proponents of each technology had many arguments that it would become the de facto standard in the iot market. But, after years of development, not many of them survive. The biggest problem is that the technology standards that have disappeared do not pay attention to the ecological construction of the industry. To form a de facto standard for the communication layer of the Internet of Things, just a few players cannot achieve it.
After launching the LoRa Alliance in 2015, LoRa developed rapidly in the global Internet of Things market and vigorously promoted the ecological construction of the alliance. Finally, LoRa lived up to expectations and became a de facto standard for the Internet of Things.
LoRa has been officially approved by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as an international standard for the Internet of Things (iot), which is called ITU-T Y.4480 recommendation: The Low Power Protocol for Wide Area Wireless Networks was developed by itU-T Study Group 20, an expert group responsible for standardization in the “Internet of Things, Smart Cities and Communities”.
LoRa Focuses on both Industrial and Consumer IoT
Continue to Stir Up China’s LPWAN Market Pattern
As a mature Internet of things connection technology, LoRa has the characteristics of “self-organizing, secure and controllable”. Based on these characteristics, LoRa has made remarkable progress in the Chinese market.
As of early January 2020, there are 130 million LoRa terminals in use, and more than 500,000 LoRaWAN gateways have been deployed, enough to support more than 2 billion LoRa terminals, according to official LoRa Alliance data.
According to Transforma Insights, in terms of industry applications, by 2030, over half of LPWAN connections will be vertical applications, 29% will be in the consumer market, and 20.5% will be cross-vertical applications, typically for general purpose location-based tracking devices. Of all the verticals, energy (electricity, gas, etc.) and water have the largest number of connections, mainly through LPWAN transmission of all types of meters, which accounts for 35% of connections compared to about 15% for other industries.
Distribution of LPWAN connectivity across industries by 2030
(Source: Transforma Insights)
From an application perspective, LoRa pursues the concept of application first, industrial iot and consumer iot.
In terms of industrial Internet of things, LoRa has been widely and successfully applied in intelligent buildings, intelligent industrial parks, asset tracking, power and energy management, meters, fire fighting, intelligent agriculture and animal husbandry management, epidemic prevention and control, medical health, satellite applications, intercom applications and many other fields. At the same time, Semtech is also promoting a variety of cooperation models, including: to customer agent, customer technology back to industrial application customers; Develop IP together with customers and promote it together; Docking with existing technologies, LoRa Alliance connects with DLMS alliance and WiFi Alliance to promote DLMS and WiFi technology. This time, THE International Telecommunication Union (ITU) officially approved LoRa as an international standard for Internet of Things, which can be said to be another step forward in LoRa’s industrial Internet of Things.
In terms of consumer Internet of things, as LoRa technology expands in the field of indoor consumption, its application is also extended to smart home, wearable and other consumer fields. For the fourth year in a row, Starting in 2017, Everynet has introduced LoRa solution monitoring to help ensure the safety of competitors by leveraging the location and tracking capabilities of LoRa technology. Each competitor is equipped with a LORA-BASED sensor that transmits real-time geolocation data to Everynet gateways, which are deployed to cover the entire course, eliminating the need for additional large-scale network infrastructure, even over complex terrain.
Words in the End
With the development of the Internet of Things, each technology is constantly updated and iterated, eventually forming the coexistence of communication technologies with different technical characteristics. Now, the development trend of the Internet of Things communication is gradually clear, and the characteristics of the synchronous development pattern of multiple technologies will become more and more prominent. LoRa is clearly a technology that cannot be ignored.
This time, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) officially approved LoRa as an international standard for the Internet of Things. We believe that every step we take will have a positive impact. However, as the domestic NB-iot and Cat1 prices fall below the bottom line and the products are getting cheaper and cheaper, LoRa is under increasing external pressure. The future is still a situation of both opportunities and challenges.
Post time: Dec-23-2021