In recent years, various technologies of the global Internet of Things have emerged one after another, especially the low-power wide-area access (LPWAN) technology, which has developed very rapidly.
In the field of low-power wide-area Internet of Things, the industry is mainly based on NB-IoT and LoRa technologies to support the interconnection of various industries, and also create a variety of innovative businesses such as smart meters and shared air conditioning.
With the rapid development in recent years, LoRa(ISM 868MHz Antenna Lora 915MHz Flex PCB Antenna) and NB-IoT(915MHz Antenna Internal Flex PCB Antenna GSM NB-IoT Antenna) have made good progress in wide coverage. NB-IoT has now completed the coverage of more than 300 cities across the country, and the number of terminal connections has exceeded 50 million. It is increasing by tens of millions every year, covering industries including smart cities, environmental protection, agriculture, medical care, logistics, and other industries.
And LoRa has also landed at many points across the country. As a technology that appeared earlier than NB-IoT, LoRa(Lora Antenna 900MHz 915MHz 926MHz FPC Antenna) has also received attention from some vertical industry markets.
At the same time, some Internet companies choose to promote the development of LoRa technology, with the intention of using LoRa technology to open up new paths for IoT.
Today, both parties need to find new growth scenarios, and the smart home and industrial Internet markets are on the ascendant. Both the breadth and depth of the market’s future development are worth investing in various technologies.
Therefore, whoever can occupy a leading position in the market, can obtain more support from the industry chain, and form a more complete ecosystem, will be able to obtain greater wins in the future.
Both LoRa(Omnidirectional Antenna 915Mhz Antenna For Lora Application) and NB-IoT, both of which are wide-area Internet of Things technologies, have inherent advantages in this short-distance coverage scenario, with a wide coverage area, low power consumption, a powerful management platform, rich terminal types, and a large number of industrial chains. Downstream support.
The IHS Markit report pointed out that the once widely open LPWAN market has begun to shrink significantly, but it is still in the initial stage of development.
In 2018, only 150 million LPWAN links were deployed. By 2023, LoRa and NB-IoT are expected to account for 86% of all LPWAN links. Among them, LoRa may be adopted by more private networks, while NB-IoT will mainly apply to the public network.
What is NB-IoT?
NB-IoT (Narrow Band Internet of Things, NB-IoT, also known as Narrowband Internet of Things) is a technical standard defined by the 3GPP standardization organization.
It is a narrowband radiofrequency technology designed specifically for the Internet of Things.
NB-IoT features
NB-IoT has obvious advantages in bandwidth and cost. It is built on a cellular network and only consumes about 180KHz of bandwidth. It can directly deploy UMTS networks, LTE networks, and GSM networks, and it is easy to upgrade the network.
At the same time, compared to 4G networks, it supports longer standby time, efficient connections, and the battery life of networked devices is very high.
Advantages of NB-IoT application scenarios
It is precise because of the low cost and low power consumption of NB-IoT technology that it is widely used in areas such as positioning, water meters, and parking. For example, there are built-in NB-IoT modules in shared bicycles to realize IoT communication.
More importantly, NB-IoT has a natural advantage for indoor scene coverage by relying on operators.
The determined spectrum resources can be covered by the operator’s original room distribution system, and NB-IoT devices can be introduced into the user’s home through integration packages and device experience. It is widely used in industries such as smart homes, smart retail, and smart city.
Although NB-IoT has obvious advantages, the current development situation in China is the lack of a unified open industry platform. At the same time, standard, chip, network, and related application layer manufacturers are mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, and they need to strengthen their alliance strength and build a strong ecology.
What is Lora?
Lora (LongRange) is a US Semtech company An ultra-long-distance wireless transmission scheme based on spread spectrum technology adopted and promoted.
LoRa network is mainly composed of four parts: terminal (with built-in LoRa module), gateway (or base station), server and cloud, and application data can be transmitted in both directions.
LoRa features
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 industry manufacturers. In contrast, the LoRa technology, which has been silent for a long time due to frequency band licensing issues, is much lower-key.
A major feature of LoRa is that it can travel farther than other wireless methods under the same power consumption, achieving the unification of low power consumption and long distance. The LoRa network is mainly composed of base stations (or gateways), servers, LoRa terminals, and objects. The networked cloud consists of four parts, which are characterized by two-way data transmission between the application side and the server side.
The advantages of LoRa are ultra-low power consumption and multi-channel data transmission, which increase the system data capacity. The gateway and terminal system can support ranging and positioning, which is very suitable for location-sensitive applications.
LoRa has the support of Ali, Tencent, Google, etc., and can directly obtain the ecological support surrounding these leading Internet players.
It is foreseeable that in future indoor scenes, NB-IoT and LoRa will undoubtedly rely on their respective ecology for long-term battles.
The Advantages And Characteristics Of NB-IoT And LoRa
(1) Frequency band, cost, service quality
NB-IoT and cellular communication use the authorized frequency band provided by the operator. Because it is a specially allocated frequency band, the interference is relatively less. Although a certain communication fee will be charged in actual applications, the corresponding will also provide better Signal quality of service, safety, and certification.
Moreover, the construction of base stations for current cellular networks is more conducive to rapid and large-scale applications.
LoRa works in the unlicensed frequency band of Sub-1G, and network equipment can be established without application. Relatively speaking, the network architecture is simple and there is no need to pay additional communication fees in actual applications. However, because it is an open frequency band, the actual application is very wide and easy to Interference from other devices in the same frequency band.
(2) Communication distance
The signal coverage of NB-IoT depends on its base station density and link budget. With the help of early resource advantages, it can achieve wider coverage and better QoS than LoRa, and NB-IoT itself has a link budget of up to 164dB. The transmission distance can reach 15km～20km.
LoRa uses chirp spread spectrum modulation technology, which not only maintains the same low power consumption characteristics as FSK (Frequency Shift Keying) but also significantly increases the communication transmission(868 915Mhz Wireless Module Receiving And Transmitting Antenna) distance, thereby improving network efficiency and anti-interference ability, that is, different spread spectrum sequences Terminals will not interfere with each other when using the same frequency to transmit at the same time. The gateway developed on this basis can realize multi-channel parallel data reception, greatly expanding the network capacity.
The transmission distance of the LoRa node can reach a coverage range of 12-15 km (in an open suburban environment, the transmission distance in an urban environment will decrease).
(3) Low power consumption, battery life
Low power consumption is one of the core indicators of the Internet of Things. Regarding battery life, two important factors need to be considered: protocol content and node current consumption.
The nodes of the NB-IoT synchronization protocol must be regularly networked, and the required peak current is several orders of magnitude higher than that of LoRa with nonlinear modulation. Especially in the process of requesting the base station to access the server after waking up, there will be a lot of battery Power consumption.
LoRa is an asynchronous communication method based on the ALOHA protocol, so accurate sleep time can be set according to specific application requirements to achieve the purpose of making full use of battery power.
(4) Equipment cost
For terminal nodes, LoRa is simpler and easier to develop than NB-IoT. The protocol and modulation mechanism of NB-IoT is more complex, requiring more complex circuit design and more cost. At the same time, NB-IoT uses authorized frequency bands. Communication requires a certain fee.
Through the above analysis, the biggest difference between LoRa and NB-IoT is NB-IoT works on the cellular(3G GSM Antenna Dipole Omnidirectional Cellular Antenna) authorized frequency band, and the network is deployed and maintained by the operator. In order to ensure normal communication and work with the base station, it is necessary to Before the actual deployment of the product, its function is effectively verified.
LoRa is a non-cellular network, and the non-disclosure of its standard details makes it difficult to generate standard signals for verification. LoRa can use traditional signal towers, industrial base stations, and even portable home gateways. It is cheap to construct base stations and home gateways.
In terms of cost, the cost of the LoRa wireless module(GSM Wireless Module Omni Dipole Antenna 868 915Mhz Antenna) and the NB-IoT wireless module is not much different, but NB-IoT is obviously higher than LoRa wireless module in terms of hidden costs.
Both NB-IoT and LoRa are still in the initial stage of development and require input and joint development from all parties. When large-scale deployment becomes possible, the cost of NB-IoT and LoRa modules will also be further reduced.
As far as technical solutions are concerned, in a short time, NB-IoT and LoRa will definitely be parallel, each has its advantages and disadvantages, and it is difficult to say who overwhelms the other.
However, if it is affected by factors other than technical solutions, such as profit model innovation, close integration with application industries, and the use of industry influence, both may take the lead in occupying the market.
In short, in the new wave of the development of the Internet of Things, the first to land the project, there is a chance to win the first step. NB-IoT and LoRa need not only product innovation but also project application innovation.
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