LP-WAN and IoT Applications – Gwentech Embedded

There have been talks that wireless network technologies like WiFi, Bluetooth and ZigBee will form the mainstay of the upcoming Internet of Things revolution. But the problem with these technologies is that they work over short distances only while many industrial, civic and even IoT applications need to operate over vast distances.

Traditionally, satellite and cellular technologies were used to power these communications but they have their own drawbacks. For one, they consume a lot of power (did you know that complex protocols reduce battery life in stand alone IoT devices?) Second, these networks are not easy to run. They are good for voice traffic but not so efficient in short data transfer. They are quite costly too.

In this situation, embedded engineers were forced to look at other technologies to fill this gap. One of them is called Wide Area Network. The IoT, industrial or civic utilities that can be powered by WAN is legion. Let’s talk about civic infrastructure. WAN can be used to power traffic control, parking resources, distribution control, utilities monitoring, distribution control and more. Embedded developers will be pleased by the other advantages of WAN also like low cost, low power consumption, extended range, and wide and wide scalability across multiple applications.