Selecting an intelligent multi-radio strategy is becoming increasingly important to succeed in a connected world, as illustrated in a new whitepaper released by the LoRa Alliance and Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA). The paper, “Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN Trials – An Overview of Use Cases Across Regions Combining Two Technologies,” provides details on practical trials and proof of concept deployments (POCs), representing a variety of use cases implemented across different geographies and verticals. It builds on the two organizations’ earlier whitepaper, “Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN Deployment Synergies: Expanding Addressable Use Cases for the Internet of Things,” which compared the two technologies theoretically and sought to demonstrate how they could be utilized to effectively support a vast array of use cases.
The POCs explored in this new white paper conclude that hybrid Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN connectivity increases market opportunity, provide a strong ROI, and offer enhanced network solutions. Adding LoRaWAN to Wi-Fi using network mutualization is a cost-effective approach to deployment using the existing base of Wi-Fi access points. This offers a significant opportunity for Wi-Fi providers to expand their addressable businesses on complementary use cases that cover both broadband applications and massive IoT leveraging the license-exempt spectrum.
This work is the result of a collaboration between members of the WBA and the LoRa Alliance. Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN are two of the most widely adopted unlicensed technologies, and together they address a large proportion of current IoT use cases. Both technologies are disrupting private-public business models and enable participation in the 5G ecosystem and developing capabilities for IoT roaming, using OpenRoaming models. 11 companies representing both Alliances from all global regions contributed to this work, including Actility, Abeeway, Boingo Wireless, Charter Communications, Cisco, Kerlink, Lacuna Space, Nesten, Simplycity, Skyhook, and Semtech.
Covered use cases include: Smart Buildings: Multi-Family Dwellings (Boingo Wireless, United States); Smart City: Smart Light Pole (Charter Communications, United States); Smart City: Energy Management and People Attendance Monitoring (Simplycity, Australia); Smart City: Interoperability between Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN at the Network Level (Nesten, Skyhook, United States); Smart Interconnection: OpenRoaming & LoRaWAN (ORL) (Cisco, Switzerland); Smart Retail: Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN In-Store Retail Analytics (Kerlink, Smart Traffik, The Netherlands); Smart Tracking: Tracking with Semtech LoRa Edge and Lacuna Satellites to Resolve Human-Wildlife Conflict (Lacuna Space, IRNAS and Smart Parks, South Africa); Smart Transportation: Asset Tracking for the Automotive Industry (Actility, Abeeway, Volvo, France)
These featured use cases are expected to give existing market players who have deployed both technologies new ideas for how to leverage their networks to support innovative applications. Additionally, network operators, enterprises, or communities that have deployed either Wi-Fi or LoRaWAN networks are shown ways they might consider extending their offerings by deploying the other complementary technology.
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