A comparative study of LPWAN technologies for large-scale IoT deployment

TLDR

By 2020, over 50 billion devices were projected to be connected via radio, driving the rapid growth of IoT and the rise of low‑power wide‑area networks such as Sigfox, LoRa, and NB‑IoT, which compete for large‑scale deployment. The study compares Sigfox, LoRa, and NB‑IoT as efficient solutions for connecting smart, autonomous, heterogeneous devices. The authors analyze success factors, application scenarios, and recommend the best‑fit technology for each scenario. The results indicate that Sigfox and LoRa excel in battery life, capacity, and cost, while NB‑IoT provides lower latency and higher quality of service.

Abstract

By 2020, more than 50 billion devices will be connected through radio communications. In conjunction with the rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) market, low power wide area networks (LPWAN) have become a popular low-rate long-range radio communication technology. Sigfox, LoRa, and NB-IoT are the three leading LPWAN technologies that compete for large-scale IoT deployment. This paper provides a comprehensive and comparative study of these technologies, which serve as efficient solutions to connect smart, autonomous, and heterogeneous devices. We show that Sigfox and LoRa are advantageous in terms of battery lifetime, capacity, and cost. Meanwhile, NB-IoT offers benefits in terms of latency and quality of service. In addition, we analyze the IoT success factors of these LPWAN technologies, and we consider application scenarios and explain which technology is the best fit for each of these scenarios.