LPWAN (Low-Power, Wide Area Network) is a technology that supports IoT applications that require low energy consumption, long range, and low bandwidth. LPWAN meets the demands of a IoT growing segment that is not covered by any current technologies.
The "first-to-market" technologies were Sigfox and LoRa. With a head start, these two technologies were able to create marketing buzz around the LPWAN sector and also engage in a few pilots.
Unfortunately, early adopters have unearthed the huge drawbacks of both technologies.
"LoRa has about 18% efficiency. This means that 82% of packets are lost when a LoRaWAN network is fully utilized" (Link Labs)
"LoRa is not a serious protocol...huge capacity and interferences issues...single chip vendor" (Haystack)
"The capacity for downlink messages is even lower than for uplink messages, so don't waste it."(The Things Network)
And Sigfox is uplink only. End device can communicate to base station but base station cannot communicate to end device heavily limiting the reliability and use-cases for Sigfox. Sigfox is also heavily betting on their business model of being a the network operator. They are hoping customers will be willing to accept the uplink only technology paired with a subscription model i.e $/message or $/device/month.
Weightless-P is aimed at filling the performance void created by low capacity technologies like LoRa. Weightless-P will give IoT solution bi-directional communication and the highest throughput in the sub-GHz LPWAN market.
Why We Chose to Support Weigthless-P
Weightless-P is the ONLY truly open standard. Historically only open standards have delivered sustainable wireless technologies. True open standards support multiple vendors who stimulate ongoing innovation and, through greater competition, lower costs. True open standards provide for access to royalty free IP to minimise production costs. Open standards ensure interoperability between manufacturers. And robust, multiple, diverse, peer reviewed design teams from across industry leads to innovations that bring reliability and high performance to the technology at a fraction of the cost of alternatives with equivalent specification. Weightless technology has been designed on a clean slate basis, from the ground up to offer optimised performance at an unbeatable price point and avoids any legacy or backward compatibility concerns.
High Performance in the 'Real World'
If your information being sent is important then bi-directional communication is a must. If you intend on deploying a LPWAN technology in the 'real world' with other wireless technologies nearby then spectrum efficiency is a must. Weigthless-P is optimized for bi-directional communication (3O times the data rate of Sigfox) using narrow bandwidth (10 times less bandwidth than Lora)