- The document provides an overview of IoT connectivity and LPWA networks, comparing technologies like SigFox, LoRaWAN, and cellular networks. - Low-power wide area networks (LPWANs) like SigFox and LoRaWAN are designed for low-cost, battery-operated devices and can provide longer range than cellular at much lower data rates. However, they have limitations on bi-directional communication compared to cellular. - While both SigFox and LoRaWAN networks are being deployed globally, key differences exist in the modulation techniques, hardware costs, and ecosystem partners for each technology.

1. IoT connectivity / LPWA Networks overview
Guillaume Crinon – Technical Marketing Manager EMEA
Nov 2015

2. 2 26 November 2015
To be connected or not to be at all ?
Building & Home Automation
Industrial Automation
Fire & Security
Metering

3. 3 26 November 2015
M2M
IoT
Video
Cloud
Mobile
Apps
BlueTooth
Wireless – wireless – wireless
10 100 1k 10k 100k 1M 10M
(Bytes / Day)
4G3G2.5G 2.75GSigFox UNB
WmBUS
WiFi
6LoWPAN
LTE-M / NB-IOT
LoRaWAN

4. 4 26 November 2015
M2M
IoT
Video
Cloud
Mobile
Apps
BlueTooth
Wireless but no gateway / smartphone
10 100 1k 10k 100k 1M 10M
(Bytes / Day)
4G3G2.5G 2.75GSigFox UNB
WmBUS
WiFi
6LoWPAN
LTE-M / NB-IOT
LoRaWAN

5. 5 26 November 2015
M2M
IoT
Video
Cloud
Mobile
Apps
Wireless Wide Area Networks – WAN
10 100 1k 10k 100k 1M 10M
(Bytes / Day)
4G3G2.5G 2.75GSigFox UNB
LTE-M / NB-IOT
LoRaWAN
Legacy
cellular
Low-Power
Wide Area Ntw
LPWAN

6. 6 26 November 2015
• PRO:
• Operated by MNOs MVNOs since 20 years
• Massive infrastructure & continued investments
• Licensed spectrum
• Ubiquitous service worldwide
• Secure communication (SIM card)
• Regulatory body = 3GPP – GSMA
• Extensive service offering
• Aiming at serving smartphones voice + data
• Aiming at increasing bandwidth 2G  3G  4G
to fight price erosion
• Legacy M2M communication channel
• CON:
• not suitable for low-cost battery-operated devices
Legacy cellular 2G 3G 4G

7. 7 26 November 2015
LPWAN for battery-operated devices
Connected
Not worth connecting
Container geolocation tag
Connected HVAC systems
Connected call buttons
Catering geolocation
Bicycle antitheft and geolocation
Industrial logistics
Consumer accessories
…
+ >200 new ideas
…75% of the M2M market by 2020!

8. 8 26 November 2015
• 2012: SIGFOX invented LPWAN with the
deployment of their UNB (Ultra-Narrow-Band)
network in FRANCE
• 2012: SEMTECH acquired CYCLEO a French
start-up inventor of the LoRa technology
• 2014: Inception of the LoRa Alliance.
• 2014: HUAWEI acquired NEUL
• 2015: 3GPP and GSMA have started working on
a NB-IoT standard aiming at providing improved
service in licensed spectrum in the frame of a 4G
upgrade
• Will LoRaWAN & SIGFOX be retained ?
• Goal is to deliver a standard by end of 2015 which
is a VERY ambitious objective
LPWAN for battery-operated devices

9. 9 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
SIGFOX is a
proprietary
network while
LoRa Alliance is
an open standard
LoRa Alliance is a
SEMTECH proprietary
technology while
SIGFOX is compliant
with most transceivers

10. 10 26 November 2015
A bit of technology

11. 11 26 November 2015
• A longer listening time per bit helps bring the
noise level down
• Additive White Gaussian Noise
 Uncorrelated successive samples
 Gaussian distribution of amplitude with variance s²
 Variance of N-averaged samples = s² / N
• Bitrate /2 = bit duration x2
• Energy per bit x2 (+6dB)
• Noise energy x sqrt(2) (+3dB)
 Improvement of Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) by 3dB
• From 2G to SIGFOX
• 200kbps  100bps
• Bit duration extended by factor x2000
• Range improvement x sqrt(2000) = x45 in open
space at iso Tx power
 Wider cells, less capex for operator
 Same for LoRa
Why are LPWANs “long-range” ?
Listening time per bit

12. 12 26 November 2015
P
b
p
B
• A longer listening time per bit helps bring the noise
level down
• Two signals have the same power Pt at transmitter
output:
• Red is narrowband low bitrate
• Bandwidth = b << B
• Power Spectral Density = P >> p
• Green is wideband high bitrate
• Bandwidth = B >> b
• Power Spectral Density = p << P
• Same power Pt = P.b = p.B
• After travelling to a distant base-station, the
signals have been attenuated
• Wideband signal has sunk under thermal noise floor
• Narrowband signal still peaks above noise floor and
can be demodulated
• Same mechanism with spread-spectrum signals
although they seem to disappear below noise floor
Low bitrate signals travel longer distances
Bandwidth (Hz)
PSD
(dBm/Hz)
Power = PSD.BW

13. 13 26 November 2015
• SIGFOX or LoRawAN
LPWAN operators are
following similar network
architectures:
• Base-stations in the field
acting as 1 global base-
station
• Simplified MAC layer cloud-
operated
• API or callback interface to
retrieve or push messages to
customer’s application server
LPWAN global architecture
API
CallBack
3G, DSL, Ethernet, Satellite
LPWAN
operator

14. 14 26 November 2015
• Both SIGFOX and the LoRa
Alliance have a mandatory
certification program
• Necessary in order to validate
that the implementation of the
communication is 100%
compliant with the specification
• In case communication issues
arise, a certificate protects the
customer against the operator
• True with BlueTooth, 3G, WiFi,
ZigBee, etc
• Pre-certified modules and
reference-designs are a great
enabler!
Certification – why it is mandatory
EZR32

15. 15 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?

16. 16 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
LPWAN data plans
cost 10x less than
GPRS/3G data plans
because 10x less
network infrastructure
required
True: for volumes >100k,
cost of communication is
~1€/node/y
But: be prepared for
aggressive competitive
2G/3G M2M data plans
in 2016…

17. 17 26 November 2015
Legacy cellular network layout complexity

18. 18 26 November 2015
• A moving UE (User Equipment) will have to switch to these 4
different cells in order to maintain connectivity
• The network manages this in real-time: Handover
• Complex mechanism supposing that the UE is updated in
real-time with the frequencies/codes of surrounding cells and
that the network pre-allocates bandwidth/slots in surrounding
cells in case the UE moves
 Your smartphone keeps talking the network even if you do not
use it: battery drains in days/weeks
• 2G networks were designed for voice service: architecture
towards limiting latency to a few 10ms and maintaining audio
QoS at an average of 5-12kbps full-duplex
• 3G and 4G networks have added the capability to handle
transfers of large amount of packetized data at rates up to
50Mbps in order to serve mobile apps with smartphones
 Still very different from an LPWAN usage!
How it impacts the User Equipment power consumption

19. 19 26 November 2015
LPWAN layout simplicity
• 5-10x less base-stations than 3G/4G
cellular networks
• All base-stations listen to the same
frequencies
 Acting together as 1 global base-station
• Spatial redundancy helps securing
connectivity for objects in harsh
environments
• Filling the blanks is easier: just drop an
extra base-station, no modification of the
existing network required
• Very attractive for LPWAN operators: low
capex, low opex, low complexity

20. 20 26 November 2015
Outdoor Indoor = Outdoor – 20dB
French SIGFOX network

21. 21 26 November 2015
Bouygues Telecom
• End 2015 : 30 urban areas over 200k
people, ie 1500 towns
• H1 2016 : 80% population
• End 2016 : Full nationwide coverage
• Total planned number of BS = 4-5k
• To be compared with SIGFOX’s
current 1400 BS
Orange
• Current pilot in Grenoble
• H1 2016: nationwide deployment
• End 2016: full nationwide coverage
French LoRaWAN deployments

22. 22 26 November 2015
• Henri Crohas has announced the launch of
a LoRaWAN collaborative network in June
2016
• ARCHOS will subsidize 200,000 LoRa
picoWAN plugs and distribute them across
Europe at once
• Probably along with the sale of a nice
peripheral and killer application associated
with a service
• Each plug will create a small LoRaWAN
bubble strengthening the network inside
homes and buildings
• Very complementary to territorial MNO
deployments
ARCHOS – LoRaWAN collaborative network

23. 23 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
SIGFOX is not
bidirectional while
LoRaWAN is
False: both are
bidirectional with the
same ETSI limitations
But: LoRa has a better
downlink sensitivity
with currently available
transceivers

24. 24 26 November 2015
• Both Up and Down link in same
unlicensed 868MHz ISM band
• European Telecommunications
Standards Institute (ETSI) regulates the
band usage
• Important rule: a base-station cannot talk
for more than 10% of the time
 1 BS serving 100k – 1M objects cannot
answer them all!
• + Base-Stations operate in half-
duplex mode: blind when transmitting
 Network is mostly uplink – downlink
used scarcely
LPWAN bi-directionality limitation in Europe
1%
10%
1%
1%
1%

25. 25 26 November 2015
• Service asymmetry is often pointed as a
service weakness
• Whereas an uplink-only service has a
great advantage
• Jamming a communication = jamming the
receiver
• Jamming an uplink protocol = jamming the
base-stations with a jammer in immediate
proximity
 When the object is heard at 20km, very
difficult to jam all base-stations simultaneously!
• When engineering a service, the return-
channel can be served with another
technology
• Ex: a smoke detector cannot move by itself
to improve its network reach
How to turn an apparent weakness into a strength ?

26. 26 26 November 2015
SIGFOX
• Sensor-initiated bi-directionnal
communication
LoRaWAN
• Class-A
• Equivalent to SIGFOX with same
constraints (ETSI)
• Class-B
• Sensors are synchronized by network
beaconing - TDMA
• Unlikely in early ISM-band public
European deployments
• Useful in private networks for throughput
optimization
• Class-C
• Mains-powered sensors/actuators can be
in listen-mode full-time
LPWAN communication protocols
t
uplink
Tx 868.1MHz
Sleep downlink
Rx 869.5MHz
Dt, Df
1% duty-cycle
+14dBm
10% duty-cycle
+27dBm

27. 27 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
SIGFOX function
HW cost is $1,
compatible with
all sub-GHz
transceivers in
the market
False: HW cost for
MCU+TRX+TCXO is > $1
Ultra-narrow band
modulation is tricky, much
more than a stack…
But: many transceivers
can be « hand-
modulated » to do the job

28. 28 26 November 2015
• Uplink:
• DBPSK modulation @ 100 bps
• Frequency: 868.13MHz +/- 100kHz
• Link budget = +14dBm (Tx) – (-145dBm) (ntw sensitivity) =
159dB >> GPRS
• 12-byte payload per message
• Message duration = 3x2s
- Repeated 3 times on 3 random frequencies within band
• Energy spent per message Etx = 3 x 2s x 50mA = 300mAs =
83µAh
• Downlink:
• FSK modulation @ 500 bps
• Frequency: Uplink + 1.4MHz (869.5MHz +27dBm sub-band)
• Link budget = +27dBm (Tx) – (-126dBm) (node sensitivity) =
154dB >> GPRS
• 8-byte payload per message
• Message duration = 300ms with average latency of 10s
• Energy spent per message Erx = 10.3s x 15mA = 154mAs =
43µAh
• As sensitive as GPS wrt frequency stability!
LPWAN radio characteristics – SIGFOX UNB
100Hz

29. 29 26 November 2015
• Frequency stability…
• Equivalent to phase noise
• Equivalent to RF carrier drift
• 100 bps  10ms bit duration
 awfully long!
• DBPSK modulation = information born by RF
carrier phase increments from bit to bit
• Constellation must not rotate from bit to bit
• 45° rotation equivalent to 3dB loss of sensitivity
at the base-station !
• 45° in 10ms = 0.007ppm/s at 868MHz !
• It takes a little bit more than a TCXO to
guarantee this in a careful design…
 This is why modules and experts are so useful 
Where does lay the complexity in a SIGFOX node ?
bit n
Demodulator
decision boundary
updated after bit n
0 1
bit n+1
0.007ppm
only drift!

30. 30 26 November 2015
• TD-Next modules and SiLabs
EZR reference-design
• TD12xx for Europe/ETSI
• TD15xx for USA/FCC
• Historical partner of SIGFOX
• >400 customers currently
developing a solution around this
HW
• 99.9% of the SIGFOX nodes
deployed in the field
AVMS recommended SIGFOX modules/chipsets
Support/Volume
Timetomarket
EZR32

31. 31 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
LoRa function
HW cost is more
expensive than
SIGFOX, only
compatible with
Semtech TRX
True: Semtech is to date the
only provider of LoRa
chipsets
But: no TCXO required
with LoRa
+ other IC vendors are
currently acquiring the
LoRa license

32. 32 26 November 2015
• Uplink:
• LoRa CSS (Chirp Spread Spectrum)
• 0.3-5 kbits per second (Adaptive Data Rate)
• Link budget = +14dBm (Tx) – (-142dBm) (ntw sensitivity)
= 156dB >> GPRS
• 0-250 bytes/message payload
• Message duration = 40ms – 1.2s
• Energy spent per message Etx = 1.2s x 32mA = 11µAh at
full sensitivity
• Energy spent per message Etx = 40ms x 32mA =
0.36µAh at min sensitivity
• Downlink:
• LoRa CSS (Chirp Spread Spectrum)
• 0.3-5 kbits per second (Adaptive Data Rate)
• Link budget = +27dBm (Tx) – (-137dBm) (node
sensitivity) = 164dB >> GPRS
• 8dB higher link budget than uplink allowing reducing SF
by 3 for downlink (9dB)  8x shorter message, 8x
increased capacity, 8x lower power consumption @
sensor
• 0-250 bytes/message payload
• Message duration = 20-160ms with average latency of 2s
• Energy spent per message Erx = 160ms x 11mA =
0.5µAh at uplink-equivalent link budget
LPWAN radio characteristics – LoRa technology
125kHz

33. 33 26 November 2015
• Microchip module
• RN2483 for Europe/ETSI
• AVMS reference-design
• MCU cortex M3
• SX1272 868MHz
• Or SX1276 bi-band
• >150 customers currently
developing a solution around
this HW
AVMS recommended LoRaWAN modules/chipsets
Support/Volume
Timetomarket

34. 34 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
SIGFOX networks
have a greater
capacity than
LoRaWA Networks
True: Ultra-narrowband
has a greater spectrum
efficiency than LoRa
But: LoRa has a very
powerful adaptive
datarate capability
enabling scalable capacity
with infrastructure density

35. 35 26 November 2015
• 200kHz allocated BW in current
implementation
• Simultaneous frequency capacity =
200kHz / 100Hz x 10% = 200
simultaneous messages
• 10% is max limit for collisions
• Message = 208bits (2.08s) repeated 3
times on 3 random frequencies
• Base-station capacity = 200 x 24h x
3600s/h / 6.24s = 2.7M mess/day @
max link budget
LPWAN capacity – SIGFOX UNB
868.13MHz
Time

36. 36 26 November 2015
• 8 frequency channels of 125kHz in the 867-
868.5MHz sub-band
• 6 Spreading Factors (SF) orthogonal between
them yielding bitrates from 300 to 5k bps
• Base-station capacity = 8 x 24 x 3600 x 20% =
138k mess/day @ max link budget (SF12) & 20-
byte payload
• Base-station capacity = 8 x 32 x 24 x 3600 x 20%
= 3.3M mess/day @ min link budget (SF7) (=
max – 15dB) & 20-byte payload
• Capacity optimization with ADR (Adaptive Data
Rate) – network controlled
• Nodes close to BS are told to communicate at higher bit
rate  shorter messages in time
 Capacity can be increased with infrastructure
densification and depends on application
LPWAN capacity – LoRaWAN
868.1 868.3 868.5MHz
Time SF
SIGFOX

37. 37 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
SIGFOX base-
stations cannot be
jammed by
LoRaWAN nodes
False: if too many
868.1MHz LoRaWAN nodes
are close to a SIGFOX BS,
they will mask distant
SIGFOX nodes from this BS
But: if the node is heard
by other SIGFOX BS,
messages will go through

38. 38 26 November 2015
SIGFOX immunity to LoRaWAN on shared frequency
SIGFOX BS
SIGFOX BS
L
L
S
S
Masking if
L-31dB > S-7dB
L > S+24dB
at base-station
Solved by
redundancy

39. 39 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
LoRaWAN
networks cannot
be jammed by
SIGFOX nodes
False: if too many SIGFOX
nodes are close to a
LoRaWAN BS, they will mask
distant 868.1MHz LoRaWAN
nodes from this BS
But: if the node is heard
by other LoRaWAN BS,
messages will go through

40. 40 26 November 2015
LoRaWAN immunity to SIGFOX on shared frequency
LoRaWAN BS
LoRaWAN BS
L
L
S
S
Solved by
redundancy
Masking if
S > L+20dB (SF12)
S > L+5dB (SF7)
at base-station

41. 41 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
SIGFOX does
not support
mobility while
LoRaWAN does
True: SIGFOX has a current
limitation wrt mobility under
certain conditions
Although more robust
against mobility by
nature, LoRaWAN has
limitations too

42. 42 26 November 2015
• Due to the very low bitrate, messages are very
long in time:
• SIGFOX: 26 bytes = 208 bits = 2.08s
• LoRa: 40-60 bytes = 320-480 bits = 1-1.5s
• A lot can happen in 2.08s when in urban
environment:
• Intersection crossing
• A car drives by
• Etc
• … whereas the base-station assumes the
channel (ie RF wave propagation path) does not
change for the whole duration of the message:
Linear Time-Invariant (LTI) channel
 Message can be lost
 An accelerometer can help assess when to Tx
 Time and spatial redundancy help
 LoRa error correction mechanism helps a lot
Mobility with LPWAN
Courtesy of www.aruco.com
2.08s

43. 43 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
100m geolocation
without GPS is
possible in a LoRa
network while
impossible with
SIGFOX
True: if a node is
seen by at least 3
LoRaWAN base-
stations, it can be
located with an
accuracy of 20-200m

44. 44 26 November 2015
Geolocation inside a LoRaWAN network
• Measuring distances can be done 2 ways:
• RSSI (Received Signal Strength) = imprecise
• Time-of-Flight of the radio wave = precise
• LoRa, given its spectral/time properties, makes it
possible to measure a time of flight with a precision
of 200ns-1µs under good receive conditions
• 200ns . c (3e8 m/s) = 60m
• Nodes and network are NOT time synchronized
 Not possible to measure distance to 1 BS only
• If BS are time-synchronized, they can time-stamp the
same message they receive (almost) simultaneously
 These tiny time-of-arrival differences can be used to
compute the relative distance of a node between 2
BS: locus = hyperbola
 3 BS required to compute a location in DTOA
(Differential Time of Arrival)
 Dense network needed!!
BS1
BS2
BS3

45. 45 26 November 2015
So they say… true or false ?
LoRaWAN is for
private networks
only while SIGFOX
covers countries
False: both will
cover countries
But: LoRaWAN is
also great for private
networks whereas
this is not SIGFOX’s
business model

46. 46 26 November 2015
SIGFOX network operators
• France: SIGFOX
• Spain: CELLNEX
• NL: AEREA / TELE2
• UK: ARQIVA
• Portugal: NARROW NET
• Belgium: ENGIE M2M
• Luxemburg: RMS / POST
• Italy: NETTROTTER
• Denmark: IoT DENMARK
• Ireland: VIZOR
• Poland: EED
• USA: SIGFOX
LoRaWAN MNOs
• France: BOUYGUES TEL – ORANGE
• NL: KPN
• Belgium: PROXIMUS
• Switzerland: SWISSCOM
• South Africa: FASTNET
• UAE (United Arab Emirates): du
• Russia: LACE
• USA: SENET
• India: TATA
• Private networks everywhere:
ACTILITY
Who are the operators ? Nov 2015
+ 50 pilots for both technologies
around the world

47. 47 26 November 2015
LoraWAN Private network infrastructure by ACTILITY
• Customer owns, installs and administrates his private network across his buildings and
campuses
• Connects sensors, actuators, machines inside Intranet
• Compatible with public networks when available
• Also useful to strengthen / complement a public network in harsh industrial environments
Webhosted IT
Webhosted admin
Infrastructure
guillaume.remond@actility.com

48. 48 26 November 2015
LPWAN conquest of the world until…

49. 49 26 November 2015
• 3GPP has launched a NB-IoT initiative in
order to normalize LPWAN in licensed
spectrum worldwide
• Backed by 20+ operators inside GSMA,
including VODAFONE, TELEFONICA,
AT&T, VERIZON, T-MOBILE, DEUTSCHE
TELECOM, TELECOM ITALIA…
• Backed by base-station manufacturers,
including HUAWEI, NOKIA, ERICSSON,
ZTE…
• Backed by cellular chipset vendors such
as INTEL and QUALCOMM
… GSMA & 3GPP strike back!

50. 50 26 November 2015
• Objective: provide improved
LPWAN services in licensed
cellular spectrum
• Premium bi-directional service
• Higher bit rates
• Lower power
• Standardized across all operators
and countries
• No extra LPWAN-dedicated
infrastructure: native in 5G base-
stations
• Deployed over full countries
overnight
NB-IoT – LPWAN integrated in a 5G service

51. 51 26 November 2015
• Licensed cellular spectrum
• Revamping of 2G channels
• 180kHz sub-bands
• LTE guard-bands
• LTE sub-carriers
• Modulations
• Uplink: 300bps – 300kbps
• FDMA – GMSK (NEUL/HUAWEI)
• SC-FDMA (Single Carrier FDMA)
• Downlink: 200bps – 100kbps
• OFDMA
• Full balanced bidirectional service
• +23dBm sensor Tx power
NB-IoT – Bits and pieces of on-going proposals

52. 52 26 November 2015
NB-IoT – Roadmap to 2020
2016 2017 2018 2019
NB-IoT
standard
initial
release
LTE/NB-IoT
infrastructure
commercially
available
NB-IoT
service
commercial
launch
2015
Early pilot
Full worldwide
NB-IoT service
complementing
unlicensed
LPWAN

53. 53 26 November 2015
Visible Things

54. 54 26 November 2015
Sensors and
Actuators
• Product
selection
• Connectivity
• Power
management
Gateways
• Connectivity
Management
• LAN WAN
• Network
interface
• Cloud
messaging
• Security
Comms
infrastructure
• Network
selection
• In field
experience
• MNO
relationships
• IT investments
Cloud
Infrastructure
• Messaging
• Large volume
• New IoT
network
servers
• Enterprise
grade
• Analytics and
reporting
Applications and
Enterprise IT
• Integration with
and collection of
appropriate data
from cloud
service
• Customer
application
development
Edge to Enterprise Challenges

55. 55 26 November 2015
Scope of the Visible Things Platform

56. Thank you!
guillaume.crinon@avnet.eu