Tag: LoRaWAN

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 […]

The new benchmark in LPWA indoor penetration is underground

Estimated LoRaWAN cell size versus cellular BTS in Munich

Light indoor penetration and deep indoor penetration with LPWAN is yesterday’s news. The new record for the penetration through walls and floors was achieved in Munich on August 10, 2018 with NB-IoT. Due to the great heat in the office, our Munich team continued the NB-IoT tests in the Munich subway tunnels. With NB-IoT you […]

Comparison of TX energy consumption across LPWAN in EU 12 bytes on NB-IoT, LoRaWAN, SIGFOX and GSM/SMS)

Energy / power consumption SMS versus NB-IoT, LoRaWAN and SIGFOX

After comparing NB-IoT, LoRaWAN and SIGFOX’s energy consumptions during transmission in the USA and Europe, here is another direct comparison with GSM and SMS. SIGFOX and LoRaWAN repeatedly call out their low energy consumption when compared to SMS with wake-up and registration on the GSM network. Their commentary is that the two unlicensed LPWAN technologies […]

Comparison of TX energy consumption across LPWAN in US (12 bytes on NB-IoT, LoRaWAN, SIGFOX))

LPWAN link budget - NB-IoT, LoRaWAN, SIGFOX

The physics in US is the same than in Europe. The energy consumption of a radio transmitter is computed by multiplying the power output with time. LPWAN in the unlicend band in the US  has not to follow a duty cycle but a maximum time of 400 ms per data package plus frequency happing. The […]

Comparison of TX energy consumption across LPWAN in EU (12 bytes on SIGFOX, LoRaWAN, NB-IoT)

Comparision energy ( power) consumption LPWAN -Comparision Energy ( power) consumption @ TX LPWAN - NB-IoT, LoRaWAN, SIGFOX

The energy consumption of a radio transmitter is computed by multiplying the power output with time. The graph clearly shows the envelope of various LPWA transmitters in Europe over time. In Europe SIGFOX and LoRaWAN are limited to 14 dBm TX power. SIGFOX and NB-IoT are along the right scale of time axis. However, in […]

How to achiev a redesign from unlicensed LPWAN to NB-IoT and back? – A basic idea

Direction in LPWAN

How do you achieve a redesign from BLE/WiFi to unlicensed LPWAN or NB-IoT? What are the pitfalls you might encounter during the redesign? Why can you not use any old antenna to do the job? What you have to know to pass radio certification in different regions? The unlicensed SubGHz bands in Europe, US, Australia, […]

Thrilling public US LPWAN Champion Hurdle – 2018-02-11

LPWAN race USA

T-Mobile on NB-IoT was the winner in a thrilling public US LPWAN Champion Hurdle. T-Mobile entered the NB-IoT horse trained by parent company, Deutsche Telekom in Germany. The surprise second place was taken by Verizon, also ridden on an NB-IoT horse. The runners up in the first LPWAN race of 2018 were the unlicensed riders. […]

Superficial knowledge in NB-IoT

NB-IoT knowledge

Unfortunately, it is a regular occurrence that people in marketing departments without technical expertise constantly recycle the same rumours and “news” about NB-IoT. Most of these “professionals” have never been inside a technical university and probably did not pass a basic course in physics at elementary school. These same people probably did not choose the […]

NB-IoT versus SIGFOX, LoRaWAN, and Weightless – power / energy the inconvenient truth

NB-IoT power consumption

Please note that I will add further modules later and that, on request, different parameters can be used in the calculation. The data in the graphic is real and was generated for a report published by a German university for a large metering customer. The report was presented during an NB-IoT seminar September 2017 with […]