A comparison of long-range licensed and unlicensed lpwan technologies according to their geolocation services and commercial opportunities

Abstract

The era of the Internet of Things already started to be a part of daily lives. During these early years of development, the biggest barrier on the IoT solutions is the limited connection ranges and the desire for longer isolated working without connection to the grid. Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) is one of the most important key solutions for these two major issues due to its ability to connect very low power devices distributed in very large areas. This need does make the LP-WAN technologies become widely used in different fields of various applications of smart cities. In this paper, the current LP-WAN technologies are categorized into two groups, those unlicensed and licensed. Explored from both technical and non-technical requirements for applications, they are also compared to each other regarding their technological and commercial aspects. Also, as the need for technologies that would apply asset location is quickly becoming a requirement for the enterprise and industrial IoT, so the geolocation feature of LPWAN is also discussed as a major requirement.