News of Connexin lobbying the UK government to recognise Low Power, Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) as critical infrastructure passed across IoT Insider’s news desks recently and prompted us to speak to Connexin directly about this particular campaign, which reflects growing interest in LPWAN for providing ubiquitous connectivity, alongside the paradox that it is not the main connectivity technology the UK uses for its critical infrastructure.
Connexin’s movement was launched at The Things Conference, which took place in Amsterdam from 25-26 September where LPWAN was rigorously discussed, and a panel session in which Connexin took part discussed smart city innovations and argued that governments needed to sit up and take notice of the technology.
According to Jason Legget, Public Sector and Enterprise Solutions Lead, “there are several different network technologies used across the world for IoT and smart infrastructure deployments and, in fairness, there is no magic bullet for any one use case – the real power in developing the right solution is to properly understand the strengths and weaknesses of the different technologies.”
LPWAN is made up of technologies like LoRa, NB-IoT, LoRaWAN and Sigfox 0G, the latter of which operates in unlicensed bands. Interestingly, after speaking to Legget, mobile network operator AT&T announced plans to retire its NB-IoT network – in favour of shifting its operations to LTE-M.
A spokesperson from AT&T was reported to say: “We are improving our IoT services for business customers by moving from NB IoT to the LTE-M network. This change will provide more data capacity for both fixed and mobile devices. As a result, we’ve stopped the certification of new NB-IoT devices and the sale of data plans utilising the NB-IoT network. We’re working closely with customers to make this process as seamless as possible.”
Why LPWAN?
Acknowledging that there is no “magic bullet” for connectivity technologies begs the question: what made Connexin get involved in LPWAN in the first place?
“Our passionate advocation for LPWAN as a technology is important because we feel it’s a technology that has not been widely understood by many,” Legget continued. “The collective voice of the big cellular, or fibre broadband industries, have drowned out the hugely important message around low power wireless networks. Therefore, we feel it is time to not only work together as an IoT industry but to be very clear in our message. LPWAN has a voice, and it needs to be heard!”
Zeroing in on the key features of the technology, Legget mentioned scalability; proven use cases; low power consumption; cost-effectiveness and performance as all noteworthy characteristics of LPWAN.
As Legget framed it, the movement marks a continuation of Connexin’s close relationship with both the LoRa Alliance, as a member, and The Things Conference, which it attends annually.
“The opportunity to deploy smarter infrastructure across the UK efficiently and effectively relies on widespread LPWAN connectivity,” said Legget, “to connect the millions of IoT sensors and deliver real value to government and public sector organisations.”
Why does he think the UK government does not acknowledge LPWAN for critical infrastructure?
“Even though governments recognise the role of sensors, the value of big data analysis and the application of connected devices as smarter infrastructure, reports from the UK Wireless Infrastructure Strategy and Ofcom fail to mention LPWAN,” he said.
Returning to the magic bullet argument, or rather the no one size fits all proposal, Legget said he advocated for LPWAN to be acknowledged alongside Fibre To the Premises (FTTP) and cellular technology, more specifically 5G, which the UK government currently uses as part of its critical infrastructure.
Providing real-world examples of where LPWAN has been utilised best, Legget referred to a network of 10,000 plus sensors and connected devices, but also said: “The real value lies in identifying the killer applications for LPWAN deployments.”
The killer application Legget referred to was water meter connectivity, citing their work with Severn Trent. “Data collectors have been installed onto lamp posts across the city to create gateways for the network that the smart water meters can report into,” he said. “This provides Severn Trent Water with valuable water usage data in near real time to gain a better understanding of water consumption on its network.”
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure, and IoT sensors provide the data we need to transform ambitions into actionable progress,” Legget aptly concluded.
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