According to a survey report on the Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) network, the growth prospects of the Internet of Things (IoT) are promising, but due to the fragmented nature of the market, it is difficult to obtain a return on investment (ROI).
Mareca Hatler, research director at market research firm ON World Inc., said: "This is not just a product like a smartphone, but an index of hundreds of different products. The trick is to create enough products to meet market demand. ."
Mareca Hatler expects revenues for LPWA systems and services to reach $56 billion by 2022. However, this market is very fragmented, users are in different stages of exploration or deployment, and there are more than 40 unique IoT applications in the LPWA network.
According to ON World's latest report, LTE's narrowband-Internet of Things (NB-IoT) version and 900MHz LoRa network will play a major role in the LPWA network in the next few years. One of the main competitors of the LPWA network, Sigfox, will follow, in part because of the need for certain unique designs.
She said: "Sigfox has millions of user devices, but the challenge is that you have to get enough devices to meet your needs - this is the product availability issue."
The problem of having to customize the IoT deployment is a challenge for all suppliers. But some manufacturers feel more profound than others.
Hatler said: "One of LoRa's strengths is to have a larger ecosystem that offers more products. There are already dozens of LoRa modules and gateways on the market, but Sigfox has only a few products."
Currently, the license-free LPWA network dominates, but as the cellular IoT becomes more powerful, related applications continue to expand (Source: ON World)
Mobile operators drive the rise of NB-IoTAbout two-thirds of LPWA network operators today are unauthorized, such as LoRa and Sigfox, but mobile operators are accelerating their expansion of their NB-IoT plans. Therefore, OnWorld predicts that about 1.3 billion LPWA nodes will be deployed by 2025, of which NB-IoT will occupy half of the market.
“In the next five to seven years, NB-IoT will have an advantage. The only problem is how fast it will happen. The size of network operators is so large that it is expected to offer disruptive pricing.†Hatler pointed out that Germany Deutsche Telecom plans to charge only $12 for each NB-IoT node.
She said operators will drive widespread availability and price. In addition, they can provide high quality services and 5 times more bandwidth than the license-free LPWA network.
China's telecom operators quickly jumped into the NB-IoT space. US operators have chosen to introduce a higher bandwidth LTE-M because it only needs to upgrade its LTE network. But in the past few months, they have announced an aggressive plan for NB-IoT, and began to ask operators to install some new hardware.
She said: "Operators have not mentioned any costs related to NB-IoT upgrades, but they are already in the process of manufacturing - some operators can even support LoRa as a reinforcement, allowing users to have their own private network."
Other advantages of LoRa include that it is an open specification with relatively more supporters. In addition, it supports asset tracking, which positions devices up to approximately 100 meters without the need for GPS.
She said that all LPWA networks will increasingly compete with existing Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Zigbee networks, especially in applications such as metering and smart buildings. Although LPWA has a lower bandwidth, it generally supports longer ranges and battery life.
Hatner said: "NB-IoT can take a share of the existing wireless mesh network. It is expected that this market will be quite large enough to support a wide range of users and applications, but we will also see More and more competition is fierce."
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