Wireless communication technology is the transmission foundation of the Internet of Things. As the large-scale application of smart cities has become a hot development, various technologies have been innovated to seize the IoT market. Among LPWAN technologies, the most popular ones are LoRa, Sigfox and NB-IoT. In the IoT trend, what are the advantages of each of these three technologies? Who is the best partner in your field of expertise?     
      
 People in related industries must be familiar with the vocabulary of IoT, big data, and AI artificial intelligence. In the technical architecture of the IoT, "sensing" is the most basic core source. Whether in agriculture, industry, construction, transportation, medical and other fields, to allow the sensed data to be analyzed through AI to form related applications, the first must Only by deploying suitable transmission technologies and domains can we collect and report huge amounts of environmental data.

In wireless communication technology, WI-FI, bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave, these early applications have laid the foundation for development in different fields. WI-FI is suitable for the transmission of large amounts of data, such as video and audio transmission or AR/VR. It is also the basis of general wireless networks. The disadvantage is that it consumes a lot of power. Bluetooth is mostly used for personal wearable devices and is used in the field of sound. More mature; ZigBee and Z-Wave are fruitful in automatic control applications such as industry and construction.

Long-distance + power-saving features, LPWAN solves the problem of Internet of Things transmission When
it comes to wireless networks, what everyone thinks of, besides WI-FI, is probably the mobile communication network of mobile phones. Today's communication technology is about to enter 5G, which requires greater bandwidth, higher speed, lower latency, and of course more power consumption. Because it corresponds to the communication between people, the data transmission is denser and the exchange volume is also greater. Is huge. For M2M communication, because the deployment range of devices is generally wider, and wireless devices must avoid frequent battery replacement, LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) technology is born, with small data volume and long-distance transmission. And the characteristics of power saving, shine in the application field of the Internet of things.

Earlier wireless transmission technologies, such as WI-FI, ZigBee and Z-Wave, have a communication transmission distance of at most 100 meters. When used in the field of smart homes, a signal-enhancing antenna or relay station must be installed. If it is to meet the relevant applications of smart cities, such as environmental monitoring or asset tracking, the LPWAN technology with a transmission distance of up to 20 kilometers can obviously reduce the deployment cost, and only a few stations can cover a large area; use batteries as electricity Source, the wiring problem is omitted, making the installation steps of the sensor easier. At present, the most concerned LPWAN technologies are LoRa, Sigfox and NB-IoT. These three technologies have their own advantages. Owners can choose the most suitable communication technology according to different fields and usage needs.

Low energy consumption and high-range transmission: LoRa and Sigfox compete.
Just like the technical characteristics of LPWAN, both LoRa and Sigfox have the characteristics of long distance and low power consumption, which can extend battery life and form a wide range of information transmission. Both of them use the license-free Sub-1GHz ISM frequency band, no additional license fees are required, and due to breakthroughs in electronic chip manufacturing technology, the hardware manufacturing costs of the two technologies have been continuously reduced. For example, Sigfox, which was launched in Taiwan’s industry last year, The monthly fee is as low as NT$2.

LoRaWAN is a network standard jointly promoted by various industry alliances. It provides open technology. As long as the key content is obtained, individual applications can be developed. Different from the openness of LoRa, Sigfox is a technology developed by the French company of the same name. It masters the operation and deployment of the core network. It intends to use the role of an independent operator to deploy network bases around the world. It has been able to deploy at 36 Countries use connectable domains and devices. In terms of type, LoRa is like a small private network with a transmission distance of up to 20 kilometers. As long as you master the technology, you can set up a base station by yourself, with higher degrees of freedom.

Sigfox is based on the global operation goal, the blueprint of continuously expanding the network base, which can provide users with existing network deployment and cloud services, and requires additional monthly fees. Compared with LoRa, the cost is higher, but The platform solution is complete and no additional network deployment is required. The transmission distance of Sigfox can reach 50 kilometers, which is the widest range among the three technologies. However, in order to achieve the goal of low power consumption, the daily transmission times of LoRa and Sigfox are limited. The transmission time in a day is very short, which is suitable for Fields that do not require instant communication, such as sensors that regularly report data on a daily basis, can measure specific environmental data such as temperature and humidity, PM2.5, and form a large-area Internet of Things through long-distance, low-frequency transmission types application.

Strong push by the telecom industry: NB-IoT is
another technology that has been actively discussed in the IoT industry chain. The biggest difference from the two aforementioned technologies is that it is a technology developed by the 3GPP organization and requires authorization to use In other words, NB-IoT must be licensed by the telecommunications industry to buy frequency bands, and users can only obtain licensed technology and frequency bands through telecommunications companies or third-party agents in order to use NB-IoT related services. The advantage of NB-IoT is that it is a technology launched by existing telecommunications operators, without the need to re-deploy the network, as long as the software is updated, the existing 4G telecommunications base station and related equipment can be used. On the other hand, the use of a carrier-grade network has a high degree of protection for communication quality and message security. Far EasTone Telecom has launched the NB-IoT early experience activity, and it is expected to complete the base upgrade of all stations by the end of May. As long as FarEasy Telecom can receive the signal, NB-IoT can be used. The monthly rental fee of the device is about 10 To 60 New Taiwan Dollars.

"Put the right technology in the right position"──Application of wireless communication technology
The above-mentioned three popular LPWAN technologies each have different characteristics. The industry predicts that in the future one of the technologies will overwhelm the crowd and become one of the best. However, as Olivier Hersent, one of the founders of LoRa, once said, the coexistence of mutual cooperation is more likely to lead to new developments in future technology. In fact, there are hundreds of applications in the Internet of Things, and the characteristics of these three technologies also correspond to the special needs of different fields. For example, NB-IoT uses licensed frequency bands and LTE technology, and its network does not limit the number of transmissions of messages, and the amount of data it can carry is also higher. Therefore, it is suitable for smart industrial fields that emphasize the stability and real-time of network transmission, or IoT devices that require high data transmission such as audio and video files. In contrast, the power consumption of NB-IoT is also higher than the other two technologies, and the loss of battery life is greater. At the same time, the collaboration model with telecom operators will be faster and easier to promote to users. From another perspective, it is also limited by hardware costs (chips) and monthly rental costs.

Compared with NB-IoT, LoRa and Sigfox are more suitable for small data volume and large-scale transmission applications due to their low hardware cost and lower power consumption. The current development scale of LoRa technology has become mature, and it has cooperated with Asia Pacific Telecom and Hon Hai Fuhong.com and has already achieved actual operating results in Taiwan. Although the transmission distance is not comparable to Sigfox, the transmission bandwidth is higher, the construction cost and technical difficulty are not high, and it is suitable for building a closed network domain in high-tech factories to transmit various types of sensing data.

From the perspective of global deployment, Yu Kaiqun, the information and communication technology manager of Rhein, Germany, said that Sigfox is a very developmental technology. Because Sigfox provides global domain services, it is more convenient for multinational companies. , Especially the integrated network solution, provides complete and stable cloud services for high-yield companies, saving many development and collaboration troubles. Sigfox has the longest transmission distance, but has the least number of transmissions in a day, so it is suitable for scenarios that reflect data changes or transmit data at a fixed time, such as pipeline monitoring, smart meters, regional climate monitoring and alarms. Sigfox is currently cooperating with O-bike in Taiwan, responsible for location tracking services, as well as ZTE's security equipment status detection, and smart medical remote care applications. Because it is a multinational application, Sigfox also cooperates with American Express to install a sensor on the package. In addition to knowing the location of the package, it can also detect when it is opened and send specific data back to the United States.

IoT future vision: Information security and technical verification are indispensable.
Emerging technologies bring more convenience and a better future vision, and also bring security concerns. When various information circulates on the Internet, once network security problems occur, it will be possible Lead to leakage of personal privacy and even affect personal safety. In Europe, where privacy is highly valued, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been passed, which strictly regulates the restriction and management of personal data collection by Internet companies. Although information security issues have not yet attracted full attention in Taiwan, with the expansion of IoT devices and fields, general users will be exposed to related issues more frequently, and network security will definitely become a product/software supplier’s need to raise One of the service plans.

He Shaopeng, senior manager of Rhein, Germany, also reminded that all wireless communication technologies must pass national regulations and alliance certification standards. First of all, it is necessary to control the frequency and power of wireless communication through national laws and regulations, so that products have qualified communication standards, and will not affect other electronic instruments or human health due to the need to strengthen communication. Furthermore, it is necessary to pass the standards of various technical alliances, including electromagnetic wave type, communication protocol and interconnection tests, to ensure that products using the same type of communication technology can communicate with each other. Like the smart home gateways currently on the market, most of them accommodate 1 to 3 communication technologies (such as WI-FI, Bluetooth, ZigBee, etc.), and the interconnection and anti-interference of the products are more important. Perhaps in the near future, different wireless network communication technologies such as LoRa or NB-IoT will also be integrated in a single IoT module. For example, in a remote factory, LoRa is used to form data transmission between devices in the local network. The data is transmitted to an external LTE network, and data from multiple factories is integrated for overall analysis.

No matter in the fields of transportation, industry, agriculture, construction, medical treatment, finance, etc., the Internet of Things will focus on emerging applications under data. The Internet of devices is only the foundation. Only by making good use of software services and grasping application business opportunities can things be realized. The true wisdom of networking.