FREMONT, Calif. — The LoRa Alliance, the global association of companies backing the open LoRaWAN standard for IoT low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs), today announced multiple network operators have deployed roaming-capable platforms, making full LoRaWAN roaming capabilities now available in 27 countries around the world, as well as via satellite.
Multiple customers globally are already leveraging the roaming services provided by public LoRaWAN network operators, says the LoRa Alliance’s press release.
Although LoRaWAN network operators exist here, Canada is not among the countries where LoRaWAN roaming capabilities are currently available. (Please see the LoRaWAN global roaming map above.)
“The LoRa Alliance continues to drive a strategy of making LoRaWAN widely accessible and easy to use,” said Donna Moore, CEO and chairwoman of the LoRa Alliance, in the press release. “As of the end of 2020, we have public and private LoRaWAN networks active in more than 160 countries around the world. We also know that true global coverage is most quickly accomplished by interconnecting networks and allowing devices to seamlessly move between them — especially for logistics and tracking applications. Many of the largest global brands have supported this approach by implementing LoRaWAN roaming across their networks, making LoRaWAN more accessible than ever before.”
Recent updates to the TS002-1.1.0 LoRaWAN Backend Interfaces Technical Specification, completed in Q4 2020, enhance ease-of-use for roaming implementations and add support of LoRaWAN geolocation features for roaming devices, says the release.
“LoRaWAN roaming covers both mobile and fixed assets of multi-national customers, whose devices leverage the radio coverage from roaming partners across multiple countries. In addition to public-to-public network peering, LoRaWAN’s roaming capabilities also support public-to-private and private-to-private network peering. The LoRaWAN protocol also offers a unique feature, whereby a given device could be served simultaneously by several gateways that may belong to its home network and one or more visited networks. From a functionality perspective, this allows several networks’ gateways to act as one, with unified coverage serving the device,” reads the press release.
To further support roaming, the LoRa Alliance has launched the Connect EU initiative to accelerate roaming across Europe, with participation from other regions.
For more, including a list of the LoRa Alliance members currently supporting LoRaWAN roaming capabilities, please click here.
