Ahead of LoRaWAN Live in Orlando next week (March 14-16), and on the back of interesting recent crossover deals with both the cellular and non-cellular IoT crowds, RCR Wireless caught up with Donna Moore (pictured), chair of the LoRa Alliance, to discuss how the LoRaWAN community is knocking hard on the door of massive IoT and how it will join a ‘unified LPWAN world’ on its own terms – at the wheel, driving large-scale industrial change, and not just as a passenger technology.
Here is the transcript of the interview, in full; all the answers are from Moore. The LoRaWAN Live agenda is here.
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What is the focus of LoRaWAN Live in Orlando next week (March 14-16)?
“So for the alliance, there is so much we can focus on. LoRaWAN is strong in asset tracking, agriculture, industrial IoT. But we decided to put a clearer focus on certain other segments this year – just because we have seen such tremendous growth in them over the last 12 months or so. And so the focus of LoRaWAN Live in Orlando, as well as LoRaWANLive in Tokyo in October, is on cities, buildings, and utilities. Because our strengths align very well with these three verticals, we have seen good growth in them, and because we want to have a narrower vertical focus.
“The other reason this [focus] plays so well is because of wider market conditions, with labour shortages, economic inflation, supply chain issues, and everything else that is happening in the world. These sectors, like all sectors, have to figure out how to survive these issues, and digital transformation is a part of the solution. Our focus is to help cities, buildings, and utilities to digitally transform. And our wider ecosystem is so important for that process because it is not just about networks and sensors, but about the whole solution. So that is the focus at LoRaWAN Live.”
Are these perceived as more straightforward for LoRaWAN, perhaps – offering a clearer path to a sale? Or is it just that a narrower focus is good, and these are the ones where momentum is strong?
“It is strategic; I mean, if you don’t focus, you just have the wide shot. But utilities and cities are probably a longer sale. Buildings tend to have a shorter cycle – they tend to use private networks. And even industrial IoT fits into the buildings segment, actually, to an extent. But cities represent a huge opportunity for LoRaWAN; so do utilities. We have cities all around the world that have deployed LoRaWAN to run multiple use cases – citizen safety, waste management, labour efficiencies. All of which are impacted further by these macro issues.
“The city of Calgary will come on stage at the end of my keynote to talk about how it has been deploying LoRaWAN for over five years. It has a strong partner ecosystem of rural alliance members, which just keeps rolling out new use cases and realising new efficiencies; the ROI is dramatic, and the city will talk about all of that. But it is true of so many cities around the world, and it is true of utilities – where these big deployments are going-in, and the use cases on top are unlimited. That is what we are seeing in those areas.”
So that’s the market focus; what is the technical focus at the event?
“The technical focus is around ease-of-deployment and ease-of-development. The hardest thing with IoT is all the moving pieces – so making it easy to buy and deploy [is important]. That is our focus, and will continue to be our focus through next year. We have more and more devices coming available for all the applications that keep popping up. And we will make an announcement at some point (in the next 30 days) about simplifying mass deployments of [LoRaWAN solutions]. The technical focus is about simplification – from development to deployment.
What is the challenge with massive deployments? What needs to be simplified?
“It is just about making sure everything works together, and as expected, and is easily provisionable over-the-air. Again, it is about making it as easy as possible – and also making sure devices are available and certified. Because enterprises want to know they’re going to work. It is like a brand promise, right? It tells people these devices have been tested, and built to the right specifications. Testing, interoperability, certification – all of that is critical to massive-scale deployments, to make sure everything is working as intended.”
Is the point that massive IoT is achievable, now, and coming faster – and that these are the hurdles to make it happen?
“Yes, it is [coming faster], and scaling both ways – in terms of devices and applications. The FOTA (firmware-over-the-air) capability means thousands of devices can be updated over the air – which is important, as well, given the fact these are long-life devices. It is all about making it easier and simpler to onboard devices when you are doing massive scale deployments.”
Talk about Semtech’s purchase of Sierra Wireless, and the closer proximity with cellular IoT suddenly. What does it mean for the community?
“Well, it widens Semtech’s toolbox, and it is the same vision the alliance has always had – that these IoT deployments are use-case driven. Some are all-LoRaWAN because of its clear strengths, and some use Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN, or Bluetooth and LoRaWAN, or cellular and LoRaWAN. The market is gigantic. And it is not a market that LoRaWAN will conquer on its own. LoRaWAN has very clear capabilities, and the alliance has very clearly partners and collaborates with other technologies as well. Because that is the only way to solve all of these use cases.
“In the end, it comes down to the use case. It is great that Semtech is opening its toolbox to support different cases. But all of our members are evolving. Some come in and want to do it all – from device to server, or whatever. But pretty soon they find, you know, it takes a lot to be a cloud provider and a network provider. And so they have also evolved, based on their strengths. They find good partners in the areas they need, and collaborate on great end-to-end solutions. So everybody is evolving, just like Semtech. I’ve seen that a lot over the last 12 months.”
So is your view that the industry has stepped away from this idea that single parties can cover the whole horizontal stack, and that they are now looking to go with trusted partners rather than to try and do it all? Rather like with the vertical aspect, where IoT companies are specialising instead of trying to be all things to all industries anymore? Is that specialist focus really the new maturity and wisdom in the market?
“Yes, I would say the ones that are finding success are moving in just that way – by collaborating. And going back to cities; these partnerships are long-term, already. The city of Calgary has long-term partnerships with alliance members; and as they’ve developed, they’ve brought in more partners and more use cases. It is interesting to watch how trust and business grow together in these partnerships. So, yes, the successful ones find their own strengths, and then partner on the rest. For sure; that is what we are seeing.”
And what about this other alignment, with Sigfox / Unabiz – so suddenly, along with the Sierra Wireless deal, this mythical future about a kind of unified LPWAN architecture looks possible, perhaps? How do you see it?
“So what I would say on that, in order just to clarify, is that, yes, it is really exciting, and I know other members will be announcing similar deals, but it is not LoRaWAN going over Sixfox; it is Sigfox, or Unabiz, adding LoRaWAN to its portfolio – because it has networks that are not necessarily driving forward as fast as LoRaWAN. So it is adding LoRaWAN; our members are not adding Sigfox. And so, maybe, someone with a Sigfox network will start to use and shift-traffic-onto LoRaWAN. That is the way I see it.”
So what’s in it for the LoRaWAN community? Is it the promise of new IoT business, which was perhaps connected on Sigfox in other markets before, and will cascade onto LoRaWAN in markets like the US? More than that, is it a sign that there is now a facility for a migration away from Sigfox towards LoRaWAN?
“Yes; the latter. It means more business for LoRaWAN members. Again, Sigfox is adding LoRaWAN for LoRaWAN deployments – so it is more business for LoRaWAN. You have to remember, as well, that LoRaWAN is a standard and an open ecosystem, and Unabiz is a private company with a proprietary solution. So they are very, very, very different. Is it the right thing? I think it is the right thing for Unabiz because LoRaWAN is successful all over the world. And if Unabiz wants to add LoRa gateways and devices, then it is a great idea for Unabiz. But for us, it is like any other proprietary network company deploying LoRaWAN on its networks.”
There is this community project with Helium, and satellite extensions coming available, and also new public network rollouts – so it does strike me that the community and the alliance have good options with LoRa / LoRaWAN. But someone said a couple of weeks back that public LoRaWAN is dead, and long live LoRaLAN – this idea LoRaWAN was and always will be a private network technology. What do you make of that?
“Private networks are growing at tremendous rates; no doubt. But so are public networks. Again, it is use-case dependent, and also market dependent. But one hundred percent, public LoRaWAN is still growing. I want to say that very clearly. Enterprises are using private LoRaWAN on their sites, and then roaming onto public LoRaWAN networks. We see cities putting in a lot of public networks. But everything in IoT depends on the use case. And no one network is going to rule them all. No one IoT technology will rule them all. Because the market is huge and varied. But I can assure you that public networks are continuing to grow.”
