The LoRa Alliance, a global association supporting the open LoRaWAN standard for Internet of Things (IoT) low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs), has announced the addition of Alex Khorram, Senior Director of 5G Product at Verizon Business, and Joey Hiller, Senior Technical Director at the Helium Foundation, to its board of directors.
Both individuals are leaders in their fields and bring extensive expertise in networking, along with a strong commitment to the LoRaWAN standard. Additionally, Stefano Landi has been elected as the new board representative from Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Anicet Giaimo from STMicroelectronics has been re-elected for another term. These appointments reflect LoRaWAN’s sustained market strength.
“One of LoRaWAN’s strengths since its initial development is its unsurpassed network flexibility among LPWAN technologies, which is driving strong growth across all network types,” said Donna Moore, CEO and Chairwoman of the LoRa Alliance. “The ability to deploy LoRaWAN solutions over public, private, satellite, community or hybrid networks is a key differentiator that is critical for massive IoT. Given the huge variety of IoT solutions and the diversity of end-user and end-market requirements, all network types are critical to give solution developers ultimate control as they scale their deployments. I am very excited to welcome Alex and Joey to the board of directors; their extensive experience with building private and community LoRaWAN networks will be invaluable as the LoRa Alliance continues to advance the standard to fulfill the promise of IoT.”
“The governance of the LoRaWAN protocol via the Alliance and global acceptance of the technology drove the decision to join the board,” stated Khorram. “We recognize that LoRaWAN supports many potential use cases we seek to deploy, and we are actively pursuing innovative uses of the technology for private deployments. We look forward to collaborating with the LoRa Alliance membership to expand and accelerate LoRaWAN deployments globally.”
“Close alignment with the LoRa Alliance allows us to collaborate on public education and work with other members on ecosystem initiatives that demonstrate the value of the LoRaWAN standard,” said Hiller. “Helium’s community-based model has enabled connectivity in areas where other networks may not have been deployed, providing a LoRaWAN network with over 300K active gateways in 125 countries, covering over 60% of the population in North America and more than 50% of the population in Europe – with distinct density in urban areas. It complements existing networks and enables continuous, global LoRaWAN coverage for applications across asset tracking, smart cities and scientific research, among other use cases. We look forward to bringing the perspective of a global LoRaWAN community of builders, innovators and entrepreneurs to the board as we work to achieve ubiquitous connectivity for all.”
The new board members enhance the board’s expertise in various networking types and technologies. They join representatives from public network operators Actility and Netmore, private network operator ZENNER, and satellite networking provider EchoStar Mobile. These organisations have been pivotal in developing the standard and providing the infrastructure that has driven LoRaWAN’s rapid growth alongside the full global membership.
“Thanks to being low-cost and based on open standards and ecosystem, LoRaWAN technology has been leveraged in all possible types of settings: public, private and community networks, deployed both terrestrially and also in space. In Actility, we have been not only supporting all these deployment cases but also nurturing collaboration among them through roaming. LoRaWAN emerged as a source of innovation in connectivity, and we have been a proud contributor to this development,” commented Alper Yegin, CTO of Actility and Vice-Chair of the LoRa Alliance.
“Supporting multiple network delivery options is the only way to meet the massive market opportunity IoT represents, and it gives customers the confidence that their use cases can be addressed with success. The work of the LoRa Alliance to support choice and flexibility in network delivery has been instrumental in driving adoption, and it is aligned well with Netmore’s approach to solving a diverse set of customer needs with predictable and cost-effective LoRaWAN network services,” said Ove Anebygd, CEO of Netmore Group.
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