Home >Industry dynamics>Industry dynamics
What is LPWAN? Comprehensive Guide on LPWAN

LPWAN (Low-Power Wide-Area Network) is a wireless communication technology for wide area network connections, characterized by low power consumption, long distance and low data transmission rate. LPWAN technology is mainly used in Internet of Things (IoT) application scenarios, including smart cities, industrial monitoring, agriculture, environmental monitoring, etc. It can cover a large area with low energy consumption and is suitable for devices and sensors that transmit small amounts of data

Related article:

4 Technologies Learn How LPWAN Enables Communication Between IoT Devices


LPWAN procotol.jpg

Common LPWAN technologies

LoRa (Long Range): LoRa uses unlicensed frequency bands (such as 868 MHz and 915 MHz) and has the characteristics of long-distance transmission and low power consumption, which is very suitable for applications that require long-term battery power.

NB-IoT (Narrowband IoT): NB-IoT is a narrowband IoT technology based on cellular networks, standardized by 3GPP. It leverages the existing LTE network infrastructure to provide better coverage and connectivity.

Sigfox: Sigfox is a proprietary LPWAN technology that uses unlicensed frequency bands, provides very low data rates and power consumption, and is suitable for simple data transmission tasks.

Weightless: Weightless is an open standard LPWAN technology that supports a variety of different operating modes (such as Weightless-N, Weightless-P, Weightless-W), and different transmission characteristics can be selected according to application requirements.

The main advantages of LPWAN technology are its low cost, low power consumption and wide coverage, which are suitable for IoT application scenarios that require large-scale deployment

lpwan-1.jpg

Features of LPWAN

Low power consumption: LPWAN devices are designed to operate at extremely low power consumption, which allows them to run for years on small batteries, especially for applications that require long-term battery power, such as remote sensors and monitoring equipment.

Wide coverage: LPWAN technology is able to cover a large geographical area, usually covering distances of several kilometers or even tens of kilometers. This long-distance transmission capability makes them suitable for wide-area IoT applications such as smart cities, agricultural monitoring, etc.

Low data rate: LPWAN is suitable for applications that transmit small amounts of data, and the amount of data transmitted each time is small, usually between tens of bytes and hundreds of bytes. This is very suitable for transmitting sensor data, status updates, etc.

Low cost: LPWAN devices and network infrastructure are usually simple and low-cost, which makes large-scale deployment economically feasible.

High number of connections: LPWAN networks can support a large number of device connections. A single base station can usually support tens of thousands of devices, which is particularly important for large-scale device connection requirements in IoT applications.

Deep coverage: LPWAN technology has strong penetration capabilities and can provide connections in areas that are difficult to cover with traditional wireless communications, such as basements and inside buildings.

Simple network architecture: LPWAN network architecture is usually simple, easy to deploy and maintain, and suitable for rapid expansion and application

Get the LPWAN with EBYTE

EBYTE is a company focusing on wireless communication modules and IoT solutions, involving a variety of LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) technologies. The following are some of the main LPWAN technologies involved by EBYTE.

LoRa (Long Range)

EBYTE provides a series of wireless communication modules based on LoRa technology, which support long-distance transmission and low power consumption, and are very suitable for application scenarios such as remote monitoring, smart agriculture, and smart cities.


For example, EBYTE's E32 series LoRa modules have high sensitivity and long-distance transmission capabilities, supporting point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, and multipoint-to-multipoint communications.

NB-IoT (Narrowband IoT)

EBYTE also provides modules based on NB-IoT technology, which are suitable for IoT applications that need to utilize existing cellular network infrastructure.

For example, EBYTE's NB-IoT modules support wide coverage and deep indoor coverage, suitable for applications such as smart meter reading, smart cities, and industrial monitoring.

In addition to LoRa and NB-IoT, EBYTE also provides modules for other wireless communication technologies, such as Zigbee, BLE module, etc. Although these are not completely in the LPWAN category, they also have a certain market in application scenarios with low power consumption and wide area coverage.