What is the difference between LoRa and NB-IoT, which technology market is more widely used?

The rapid development of the Internet of Things puts forward higher requirements for wireless communication technology. The LPWAN (low-power Wide-Area Network, low-power Wide area network) is also rapidly emerging. NB-IoT and LoRa are typical representatives among them, and they are also the two most promising low-power wide-area network communication technologies.

What exactly is the difference and difference between these two?
What are the overlapping or different areas of application?

LoRa: Low-power wide-area IoT technology that is easy to build and deploy

The birth of LoRa was earlier than NB-IoT. In August 2013, Semtech released a new type of chip based on ultra-long-distance low-power data transmission technology (Long Range, referred to as LoRa) below 1GHz to the industry. Its receiving sensitivity has reached an astonishing -148dbm, compared with other advanced level sub-GHz chips in the industry, the highest receiving sensitivity has been improved by more than 20db, which ensures the reliability of network connection.

Regarding this topic, industry experts said that due to the vigorous publicity of NB-IoT, many people think that it will become the "terminator" on the development road of other low-power wide-area network technologies, and are afraid of it, but it is not the case. The development of NB-IoT has stimulated the entire market's demand for low-power wide-area networks, and LoRa, a low-power wide-area network technology, has been realized by the market more quickly and to a greater extent. Recently, Weichuan Company tested the maximum air-to-air parallel distance of LoRa, which reached 21.5 kilometers, which aroused great repercussions in the industry, and the number of customers increased a lot.

Faced with such a rising star NB-IoT with a strong background, will LoRa really be replaced by it?

No technology can completely occupy the market, and NB-IoT will promote the development of the entire industry. To some extent, NB-IoT and LoRa belong to two camps. Because NB-IoT mainly relies on the operator's infrastructure for protocol docking, LoRa is a more flexible autonomous network that can be deployed wherever it is needed.

Experts said that NB-IoT is developing rapidly, and NB-IoT has been supported by many communication companies, such as telecom equipment suppliers such as Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and ZTE, large telecom operators such as AT&T, China Mobile and China Unicom, and chip solutions Suppliers such as Qualcomm are expected to commercialize it on a large scale in 2017. However, NB-IoT mainly depends on network coverage. In many places with harsh conditions, the infrastructure of operators is not fully covered. These blank areas are the LoRa market. In addition, in the entire Internet of Things field, the fragmentation situation is very serious, and the application fields are various, which brings many opportunities for the development of LoRa. LoRa can be deployed at any time, regardless of the region, and is very flexible. NB-IoT and LoRa must coexist and complement each other. At the same time, NB-IoT is not only competing with LoRa, but also competing with other technologies.

Industry experts said: "The advantage of LoRa over NB-IoT is that it has already been commercially mature, while NB-IoT has just begun. There may be many overlaps in the applications of LoRa and NB-IoT, but NB-IoT is dominated by operators. , to use the operator's network, so the data is uploaded to the operator first, and many companies may not want to give their data to others, so these companies would rather deploy their own private IoT network. At this time, it is very convenient to use LoRa Suitable."

LoRa technology has made breakthroughs, and foreign operators have deployed backbone networks

LoRa is a technology dedicated to radio modulation and demodulation released by Semech. Compared with NB-IoT, LoRa is a more "open" system.

Experts said that the biggest advantage of LoRa is low power consumption, easy networking, low cost, long transmission distance, etc., which can meet the long-term operation, and the battery power supply can last for several years. LoRa is very suitable for the needs of local areas, and can also cover the whole country. At present, there are about millions of IoT nodes in the world using LoRa technology. It is worth mentioning that LoRa is very suitable for large-scale deployment, such as municipal facility detection or wireless meter reading in smart cities. The implementation cost of LoRa's current solution is also lower than that of NB-IoT. Moreover, the development of LoRa technology is earlier than that of NB-IoT, and the industrial chain is relatively mature.

Speaking of the progress of LoRa technology, the latest LoRaWAN protocol V1.1 of LoRa technology has begun to be tested in a small area, especially in the fields of base station roaming and location positioning. In terms of the industry chain, the LoRa Alliance is also growing and growing. Foreign countries such as Korea Telecom SKT and India's Tata Telecom have begun to complete the deployment of LoRa backbone networks across the country.

It can be seen that LoRa is not afraid of the challenge of NB-IoT, and both have their own advantages.