The LoRa Alliance, the industry association behind the open LoRaWAN low-power wide-area network protocol for IoT, has announced that it has signed on more than 100 network operators in nearly as many countries around the world.
The alliance said it has experienced “explosive growth” in 2018, with the number of end-devices connected to LoRaWAN networks being tripled since the beginning of the year.
This demonstrates significant acceleration of adoption compared with other technologies yet to achieve such an expansive footprint, the alliance added.
“Reaching this operator milestone is a major achievement for the LoRa Alliance,” said Donna Moore, CEO and chairwoman of the LoRa Alliance.
“Only LoRaWAN has strong, established networks with broad coverage areas, while also offering the private network option. For companies looking to launch IoT products and solutions today, the LoRaWAN standard is the only viable solution. Features like firmware updates over the air and the fact that LoRaWAN is an open specification with a robust certification program ensure network and device interoperability. These benefits give confidence to the market that companies are future-proofed and can deploy solutions today with assurance they will work in the future.”
According to figures released by the LoRa Alliance, LoRaWAN networks are showing highest growth in the Asia-Pacific and European regions at a respective 30% and 50% last year.
“LoRaWAN has seen tremendous interest and growth in India in the past year. In that market alone we already provide network coverage in 30 cities to support IoT applications such as smart metering, smart parking, and smart waste management solutions and see no signs of this slowing as we enter 2019,” said Ali Hosseini, founder and CEO at SenRa.
The alliance said the total operator investment in LoRaWAN is significant on a global basis, which shows network operators’ long-term commitment to the LoRaWAN standard and to support the market demand for IoT applications.