NB-IoT and Sigfox comparison – number of base stations / gateways

In order to understand why more base stations automatically represent a better network, some explanations are necessary. Sigfox has planned 2400 gateways for Germany. These 2400 gateways are confronted with 24,000 LTE base stations from Vodafone and approximately the same amount from Deutsche Telekom. These 48,000 LTE base stations do not all need to be […]

NB-IoT and Sigfox comparison – upload and download capacity

NB-IoT & Sigfox comparsion - upload and download

The message container at LPWAN limits the application in the number of possible bytes per transfer. In addition to the physical container, there is always a logical limit. In the European unlicensed band we have one percent duty cycle in the upload. Therefore, only 36 seconds per hour are available for the protocol header and […]

How to calculate the link budget in LPWAN

How to calculate the link budget

The link budget is the total of all losses and gains from the transmission of a radio wave. A wave is amplified or attenuated by the antenna.  During the transmission of a signal between transmitter and receiver, data can be lost. The study of losses and gains is therefore important to calculate the reliability and […]

From concept to your wireless IoT button

IoT button

The akorIoT Group has a development team with many years of experience in wireless data transmission which today is termed “Wireless IoT”.  The integration of antennas into enclosures is another area of expertise for the akorIoT Group; in addition to standard antennas such as solderable chip antennas or flex PCB antennas, customer-specific antennas are often […]

akorIoT SensPRO – reference design for NB-IoT and LTE-M

akorIoT-SensPRO top view

akorIoT is a portmanteau word from “akor” and “IoT“. “Akor” is the ancient Celtic word for “open”. The goal of the akorIoT SensPRO was to create an open platform similar to the idea of a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). As with a PLC the programmability, storage of the program in memory and the execution of […]

BG95 / BG77 antenna selection and antenna matching

LPWA frequencies in comparison

In order to save development and approval costs, the antenna, frequency bands, ground plane size and housing should be carefully designed at the beginning of development. If the company lacks in-house experience with radio, antennas and worldwide approval, we recommend consulting an external consultant. The following text is intended to make you think. I use […]