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5G and LoRaWAN Co-Exist to Serve the Internet of Things

5G will serve an enormous number of applications but it will not be the best fit for every IoT use case. Particularly, the LPWAN sector will demand a solution with an extremely low total cost of ownership (TCO) for many business cases to be feasible. LoRaWAN shares some of the strengths of 5G in that it leverages an open standard and a thriving global ecosystem, managed by the LoRa Alliance®. In contrast to 5G, LoRaWAN is a relatively simple networking protocol that has been designed from the ground up to serve distinct use cases. The prototypical use case for LoRaWAN is a battery-operated device that transmits several bytes of data at intervals of 15 minutes to an hour, and needs to last in the field for 10+ years without wires. The communication range can easily reach more than 10km, which is much longer than Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi, and millimeter wave 5G. LoRaWAN is not the right choice for applications that require streaming of video or voice calls, nor is it optimal for ultra-low latency applications. However, it is the optimal choice for what it was specifically designed to do and it accomplishes this efficiently and cost-effectively. Depending on the application, sometimes 5G will be the best fit and sometimes LoRaWAN. Learn more on our website: https://www.semtech.com/lora/lorawan-standard