The LoRa Alliance, the global association of companies backing the open LoRaWAN standard for the Internet of Things (IoT) low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs), issued two best practices documents to standardize and accelerate LoRaWAN network deployments. The new guidelines for LoRaWAN gateways provide recommendations for what and how to measure RF performance to standardize and accelerate deployments. The new white paper reviews considerations for deploying gateways outdoors and recommends best practices to minimize interference.
Donna Moore, CEO and chairwoman of the LoRa Alliance said that this year is all about scale. The LoRa Alliance has been laser-focused on advancements to the LoRaWAN standard that make deployments easier–which is critical for achieving mass scaling. Following these guidelines and best practices provides confidence in gateway performance and simplify deployments to assist users to get their LoRaWAN networks up and running quickly with optimal performance. On behalf of the LoRa Alliance, she also wanted to thank Michel Gilbert from founding and board member company Kerlink for his expertise and tremendous support in developing the white paper.
The Gateway Test and Measurement Guidelines standardizes RF measurements for LoRaWAN gateways. Following the new guidelines supports rapid deployments by ensuring all gateways are tested in the same manner. This in turn allows users to validate the testing more easily and compare results between gateways, thereby simplifying operational assessments and network planning for deployment.
The White Paper on Radio Coexistence Issues and Solutions details the phenomenon which could cause interference and desensitization of the LoRaWAN gateways and recommendations to avoid it. For many use cases, LoRaWAN gateways may need to be collocated with other radio systems such as cellular base stations (GSM/UMTS/LTE) or TV emitters. This paper examines the potential issues and provides guidance on how to install LoRaWAN gateways to avoid interference from out-of-band and in-band sources. Understanding the potential issues and addressing them upfront ensures networks can be deployed quickly and with optimal performance.
