At a pivotal time for the Internet of Things, Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies are blindsiding existing wireless sensor network technologies with multi-kilometer network ranges, multi-year battery lifetimes and cloud-integrated network stacks, according to a recently published report by global IoT research firm ON World (www.onworld.com).
“After a decade of technology advances such as low power wireless radios, MEMS and cloud platforms, LPWANs represent a new gold rush for Internet of Things investors and developers,” says Mareca Hatler, ON World’s research director. “The simplicity and accessibility of LPWANs is drawing new entrants and innovative IoT services that will contribute billions of dollars to the global economy.”
ON World’s interviews and surveys with 150+ IoT market leaders found that 1-in- 3 are planning or currently offer LPWAN products and services with the majority of these today using LoRa or SigFox. In addition to growing participation by telcos such as AT&T, Bouygues, Orange, SK Telecom and Verizon, there are a number of independent LPWAN network operators including SigFox, Ingenu, Qowisio, M2Ocity and SENET as well as the free, crowdsourced “The Things Network.”
IoT platform providers that support LPWANs include Actility, Cumulocity, Intent Technologies, Loriot, OrbiWise, relayr and Stream Technologies. A few LPWAN vendors include Beep Networks, Cisco, Connit, EVVOS, Flashnet, Kerlink, Libelium, Link Labs, Multi-Tech Systems, Quantified Ag, SmartSensor Labs, Telensa, Urbiotica, Weenat and Worldsensing.
The LPWAN ecosystem is rapidly growing with networks rolling out worldwide and hundreds of companies participating in LPWAN standards and alliances. Over the next ten years, LPWAN services revenues will reach $75 billion. Non-consumer markets including industrial automation, logistics, smart cities, agriculture, smart buildings and other enterprise IoT services will make up three quarters of the LPWAN services at this time, according to ON World, which provides global business intelligence on Internet of Things markets.