For LoRa technology, people in the industry are not unfamiliar, and it is often compared with NB-IoT technology. As an emerging technology of low-power wide area network (LPWAN), both technologies have attracted much attention.
For LoRa technology, people in the industry are not unfamiliar, and it is often compared with NB-IoT technology. As an emerging technology of low-power wide area network (LPWAN), both technologies have attracted much attention.
At present, in China, the development of NB-IoT technology is in full swing due to the favor of national policies, telecom operators and major manufacturers in the industry. In contrast, LoRa technology, which has been silent for a long time due to frequency band licensing issues, is much lower-key.
However, recently, the cooperation between Alibaba and China Tower, and the announcement of Tencent’s entry into the LoRa Alliance has injected a "cardionic agent" into the industry. With the support of Internet giants such as Alibaba and Tencent, LoRa technology may usher in another domestic market. One spring.
Alibaba Cloud claims to connect 10 billion devices in the next five years. In April of this year, Alibaba Cloud announced that the IoT platform based on LoRa devices and radio frequency technology has begun trial commercial use.
Tencent is focusing on related investments in LoRaWAN technology and applications. In July 2018, Tencent also announced plans to jointly establish a LoRaWAN network in Shenzhen with its partners, with the purpose of providing smart solutions for cities, finance, healthcare, retail, and industry.
The LoRa technology market has a bright future
LoRa technology was originally a spread spectrum wireless modulation patented technology developed by the French company Cycleo (founded in 2009). In 2012, Cycleo was acquired by Semtech of the United States for approximately US$5 million. After the acquisition, Semtech, in order to promote other companies to participate in the LoRa ecosystem, jointly initiated the establishment of LoRa in February 2015 with Actility, Cisco and IBM. alliance.
After more than three years of development, the LoRa Alliance currently has more than 500 members worldwide, and LoRa networks have been deployed in more than 100 countries around the world. These networks spread across the United States, Canada, Brazil, China, Russia, India, Malaysia, Singapore, etc. Countries and regions. Among them, Alibaba is an active promoter of LoRa technology in China. Now with the addition of Tencent, the development of LoRa technology in China will be more noticeable.
Driven by many members of the LoRa Alliance, the market development prospects of LoRa technology are also highly anticipated. According to the data released by IHS Markit, the number of LoRa-based gateways deployed globally has exceeded 70,000 in early 2018. It is expected that by the beginning of 2019, the number of gateways will reach 200,000, and the number of terminal nodes will reach 80 million, which is more than 40% expected. They are all LoRa-based devices. In 2025, the number of machine-to-machine connections worldwide will grow to 27 billion.
It is not difficult to see that LoRa technology has a broad market prospect. At the same time, this can't help but make people curious. Among the many emerging technologies of the Internet of Things, what is the "charm" of LoRa technology that can stand out?
Outstanding technical advantages
First of all, from a technical point of view, compared to the NB-IoT solution with higher cost and energy consumption, users can complete LoRa network deployment without relying on operators, which is not only faster to deploy, but also at lower cost. In closed areas such as residential communities, farms, and industrial parks, especially indoor and underground environments with weak NB-IoT signals, LoRa technology has obvious advantages.
Because of this "lightweight" construction advantage, the layout of the LoRa solution is actually more extensive. At present, 350 cities in 41 countries including the United States, France, and South Korea have begun to use LoRa for network deployment trials, and a total of 67 network operators are providing services.
In addition, low cost is also the advantage of LoRa over NB-IoT technology. Although the development momentum of NB-IoT technology has been very strong in recent years, it still has great limitations in terms of cost. Although the price of NB-IoT modules is expected to drop to less than US$5 in the future, the current price of chips supporting the three standards of Bluetooth, Thread, and ZigBee are all around US$2, and the price of chips supporting only one of these standards is about 1 US dollars. The huge price gap will undoubtedly make enterprises have concerns when deploying NB-IoT, which also prevents the NB-IoT market from developing rapidly.
Of course, LoRa technology also has the fatal shortcoming of being unable to move, which also makes it impossible to achieve deep coverage. From the current stage, the NB-IoT technology that emphasizes unified standards and ultra-high reliability is complementary to the LoRa technology that pursues personalized deployment and meets the needs of scenarios. Some people in the industry believe that these two technologies do not have absolute advantages and disadvantages, but they have different needs at different stages.
Diversified application scenarios
If simple deployment and low cost are one of the advantages of LoRa technology, then diversified application scenarios are another advantage that cannot be ignored. At present, LoRa technology can be quickly and flexibly deployed in smart cities, smart water meters, smart parking lots, industry and enterprise-specific applications.
For a long time, LoRa technology has been favored by users in government and enterprise industries. Many users in the government and enterprise industries tend to have independent and controllable private networks due to their business characteristics. LoRa technology and LoRaWAN specifications have become the first choice for a large number of non-operator users in China due to their flexible and low-cost deployment advantages. For example, in the detection of underground water pipe networks and comprehensive pipeline construction, LoRa sensors can be used to monitor abnormalities. LoRa technology has a very competitive advantage.
In addition, in terms of smart city applications, if there are smart street lights on both sides of the road, the usage status of the bulbs can be transmitted through the LoRa network, and relevant units can be notified in time to maintain, repair and replace the bulbs;
In terms of smart parking lots, LoRa technology can save a lot of construction costs due to its flexible deployment characteristics. At the same time, a LoRa gateway can manage LoRa sensors for hundreds of parking spaces to monitor the usage of parking spaces in real time;
In terms of intelligent tracking, the battery life of the terminal is very important for tracking or positioning. Since the cost of the tracking system and battery life must be considered, it is quite suitable for tracking using LoRa technology;
In terms of smart water and electricity meters, the installation of corresponding LoRa modules on the water and electricity meters not only saves labor costs, but also remotely and real-time grasp the water and electricity situation to avoid waste;
Of course, in addition to the many application scenarios mentioned above, LoRa technology can also be flexibly deployed in application fields such as smart agriculture and smart fire protection, and more unexpected application scenarios will surely be developed in the future.
Large industrial ecological group
From a technical perspective, LoRa is a physical layer modulation technology that can be used in different protocols, such as LoRaWAN protocol, CLAA network protocol, LoRa private network protocol, LoRa data transparent transmission. With the different use agreements, the final product and business form will also be different.
Among them, the LoRaWAN protocol is a low-power wide area network protocol promoted by the LoRa Alliance. At the same time, the LoRa Alliance standardizes LoRaWAN to ensure that LoRa networks in different countries are interoperable. Up to now, the LoRaWAN standard has established a complete ecological chain of "LoRa chip-module-sensor-base station or gateway-network service-application service".
The LoRa chip is at the core of the entire industry chain, and its importance is self-evident. It is worth noting that the US Semtech is currently the core supplier of LoRa chips and holds the core patents of LoRa underlying technology. And Semtech's customers mainly have two kinds, one is the semiconductor company that has obtained the Semtech LoRa chip IP authorization; the other is the manufacturer that directly uses Semtech chips as SIP-level chips, including Microchip Technology (Microchip) and so on.
According to conservative estimates by industry insiders, LoRa chips will sell more than 100 million pieces each year after 3 years, and the LoRa application market after 3 years will also attract attention. So what role do Internet giants such as Alibaba and Tencent play in this?
In March of this year, Alibaba Cloud announced its full entry into the Internet of Things field, from cloud to cloud, management, edge, and end-to-end ecological layout. As optimistic about the prospect of WAN in unlicensed spectrum, Alibaba Cloud has developed a LinkWAN IoT platform that supports the LoRa protocol, and can also provide rich LoRa products such as LoRa node devices and LoRa gateways. In addition, the layout of Alibaba's successive investments in chip companies such as ASR and Zhongtian Micro is also very intriguing. In order to promote the expansion of LoRa in China, Alibaba has built LoRa networks in Hangzhou and Ningbo this year, and has the conditions for commercial use.
Although it is incomparable with Ali's overall layout, Tencent's joining the LoRa Alliance will undoubtedly inject a "cardio booster" into the industry. To support the further development of the LoRaWAN ecosystem, Tencent has announced plans to establish a LoRaWAN network with local partners in Shenzhen to provide various IoT applications and end users (such as government public services) with LoRaWAN integration from equipment, edge to cloud Solutions.
At the end of last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Technical Requirements for Micropower Short-Range Radio Transmission Equipment (Draft for Comment)", which suddenly made the commercial prospects of LoRa less clear. However, after more than half a year, LoRa has not disappeared, but its vitality has become more tenacious. Many big names such as Ali, Tencent, China Unicom, Radio and Television Group and Google have joined the LoRa camp. While the industrial ecology has continued to grow, it has also made its strength. More can not be underestimated.
Operators prefer NB-IOT
The main Internet of Things technology standard in my country is NB-IoT, and major operators have invested a lot in this standard, especially China Telecom, which is already in a leading position in the application of NB-IoT in the country. NB-IoT and eMTC are both international standards, while the other two are private standards.
The biggest difference between the two lies in the frequency spectrum, which is also the most valuable asset of these IoT connection standards. To put it simply, owning the spectrum is equivalent to owning a legal parking space, and at this point, LoRa and Sigfox are inherently insufficient.
In recent years, it has become the norm for Huawei to stand up for NB-IoT, and jointly with Qualcomm, Vodafone and other internationally renowned companies formally put forward the concept of NB-IoT in 2015. In addition to Huawei, the three major operators also favor NB-IoT.
Since NB-IoT is an operator's network construction, unlike a network like LoRa, it is an independent enterprise network construction. NB-IoT can be modified on the basis of the communication base station itself, and the network can be built with not too much workload. Operators can then master this data channel to charge fees, and increase the number of access terminals, both in terms of performance and political achievements.
In this case, of course, operators actively promote NB-IoT.
More importantly, the government also strongly supports the development of NB-IoT, and the country has launched a number of related policies to support NB-IoT. For example, on June 16, 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially released the "Notice on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction and Development of Mobile Internet of Things (NB-IoT)", clearly adopting 14 measures to comprehensively promote the construction and development of NB-IoT, and build 1.5 million NB-IoT by 2020 Base stations, the total number of NB-IoT connections that have developed more than 600 million.
With government support at the top, operators actively deploying in the middle, and strong support from Huawei at the bottom, it is difficult for NB-IoT not to become popular in China.
Advantages of NB-IoT
Currently, the NB-IoT standard has been frozen, and China is already in the stage of large-scale commercial use. NB-IoT has 4 main characteristics, namely, wide coverage, low power consumption, large connection, and low cost.
In terms of power consumption, NB-IoT sacrificed speed in exchange for lower power consumption. A simplified protocol and a more suitable design have greatly increased the standby time of the terminal. For some NB terminals, the standby time is claimed to be up to 10 years.
In terms of signal coverage, NB-IoT has better coverage capabilities (20dB gain), even if the water meter is buried under the manhole cover, it will not affect signal transmission and reception.
In terms of the number of connections, each cell can support 50,000 terminals.
In terms of cost, it is also a highlight of NB-IoT. The cost of communication modules is very low. Each module is expected to be less than $5 or even lower, which is conducive to mass purchase and use. According to Moore's Law, it can be concluded that the cost can be reduced to less than one US dollar in less than 40 months.
to sum up
In terms of NB-IoT, operators have the right to speak. They build networks on their behalf. Owners don’t need to consider base station deployment, but the network quality depends on the operators. Owners can’t control them, and the data must go through the operators, the owners need and operate. There are problems with the confidentiality of the business data obtained by the business docking, and the operating data is also uncontrollable. On the other hand, NB-IoT can be modified based on domestic ready-made base stations, and it is very easy to construct a network.
LoRa is just the opposite. Owners (enterprises) can independently control network quality and quickly optimize and supplement network coverage; they can also operate independently, take operating data in their own hands, and expand the network according to business needs, which is particularly free. However, the construction of the LoRa base station is rather awkward, and there are still many troubles to select the site and supply power for the base station.
Powerful companies such as Tencent and Alibaba care more about freedom and master control. The three major operators prefer NB-IoT as a standard. After the standards are clarified, it is also more conducive to the prosperity of the industrial ecology. The mass production of terminal module chips will bring about a reduction in prices, unification of platforms and applications, and a more focused development direction.
Wonderful reading recommendation:
Does nb-iot need a sim card
Does nb-iot support voice services? Features of nb-iot IoT smart meter
nb-iot technology principle
B85 8-card mainboard, 8-card in-line motherboard platform (B85 8-card 1820U independent U+ new chassis 4 strong 5300 RPM fan /4 silent 3000 RPM optional +4G memory +128G solid state +2000W new power supply) compatible with all types of graphics cards in the market, stable performance, reasonable heat dissipation.
X79 Gpu Mining Case
Chassis weight: 4.5kg
Weight of chassis with fan: 5.5kg
Size:500*400*180mm
Multi graphics card case custom case
Motherboard bit: compatible with standard ATX motherboard
Hard disk bit: a 3.5-inch hard disk or a 2.5-inch hard disk
Power bit: ATX power installation size
Standard fan: 4 sets of 12038 fans,
Graphics card bit: supports up to 5 330mm long graphics cards
Chassis material: 1.0 mm cold plate full baking paint to prevent rust, anti-static effect!
tips: chassis products are bulky, heavy weight, and the express freight is very expensive. Buyers should consider buying them carefully to avoid unnecessary loss caused by return. If you don't understand, please communicate with customer service.
The fan of the product is double ball fan, 5300 RPM new violent fan, with noise of 65dB
B85 Gpu Case,B75 gpu case,gpu mining case,gpu case,GPU Server Case
Shenzhen YLHM Technology Co., Ltd. , https://www.hkcryptominer.com