LoRa Surpasses 100 IoT Nets

Claiming that the internet of things (IoT) is reaching a tipping point, the LoRa Alliance announced that it has more than 100 networks operating around the world. It plans to expand certification and testing programs this year to ease deployments, which it claims already cover millions of end nodes. LoRa is one of a basketful of long-range, wide-area networks trying to get traction in IoT. It competes with OnRamp, Sigfox, Telensa, and others in unlicensed bands and with cellular Cat-M and Narrowband IoT networks from cellular carriers. Wi-Fi vendors will roll out chips for the 802.11ah standard — aka HaLow — this year, increasing competition in the 900-MHz band. Practitioners say it’s still early days for IoT given that each deployment tends to require custom work defining a business case and designing a network for it. “I’m very bullish; I do think we are at a crossroads where it is now a market pull,” said Donna Moore, a 10-year veteran of the Digital Living Network Alliance before becoming chief executive of the LoRa Alliance last year.