With Alibaba participating in a technology bet, how can LoRa “die”?

Recently, a piece of news quickly spread in the circle of friends of IoT practitioners, saying that due to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's regulation of micro-power short-range radio transmission equipment, LoRa technology is going to be "cold". The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's Announcement No. 52 of 2019 has the following description in the interpretation of relevant policies: In my country, according to the "Radio Frequency Allocation Regulations of the People's Republic of China" and its footnotes 5.138 and 5.150, the 6765-6795kHz (center frequency 6780kHz), 61-61.5GHz (center frequency 61.25GHz), 122-123GHz (center frequency 122.5GHz), 244-246GHz (center frequency 245GHz) frequency bands are used for ISM Application, but its use must be specially approved by the radio authorities; 13553-13567kHz (center frequency 13560kHz), 26957-27283kHz (center frequency 27120kHz), 40.66-40.7MHz (center frequency 40.68MHz), 2400-2500MHz (center frequency 2450MHz), 5725-5875MHz (center frequency 5800MHz), 24-24.25GHz (center frequency 24.125GHz) frequency bands are also used for ISM applications, and radio services operating in these frequency bands must bear the harmful interference caused by these ISM applications.

Internationally, the 433.05-434.79MHz (center frequency 433.92MHz) frequency band is designated for ISM applications by some European countries in ITU Region 1, and the 902-928MHz (center frequency 915MHz) frequency band is designated for ISM applications by countries in ITU Region 2, such as the United States. Compared with Europe and the United States, most ITU Region 3 countries, including my country, do not have any frequency bands designated for ISM applications in the 100MHz-1GHz frequency band.

According to the "Radio Frequency Allocation Regulations of the People's Republic of China", the above-mentioned frequency bands designated for ISM applications are also allocated to radio services. Both ISM applications and radio services that comply with the allocation can use the above-mentioned frequency bands, but they must comply with relevant radio management regulations of my country.

From this description, we can clearly see that the 433 MHz frequency band used by the international LoRa technology is not within the specified range of ISM applications in my country, and the 470-510MHz frequency band used by China's LoRa technology is not mentioned. However, it is too one-sided to conclude that LoRa technology will be "cold" in China.

In fact, practitioners may have gotten used to it. This matter has to start with the "Technical Requirements for Micro-Power Short-Range Radio Equipment (Draft for Comments)" issued by the Radio Management Bureau of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2017. Compared with today's announcement, the 2017 draft for comments is actually more "tough". The draft for comments pointed out: Among them, the 470-510MHz frequency band can be used as a frequency band for civil radio metering instruments, and is limited to single-frequency use and cannot be used for networking applications. For a time, the two industries of LoRa and FSK were all in a turmoil. How can we talk about meter reading and the Internet of Things without networking?

The 2017 draft for comments received widespread attention from IoT practitioners, and related companies submitted feedback to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The final result was that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's regulations no longer explicitly stated that the 470-510MHz frequency band could not be used for networking, but instead stated that it could be used for local area networks, and restrictions on specific applications were also lifted.

LoRa technology is an important part of the development of the Internet of Things

Many people may think that NB-IoT has a bright future in the Chinese market. NB-IoT has been officially included in the 5G candidate technology set in the complete submission of the IMT-2020 (5G) candidate technology plan. However, NB-IoT and LoRa have long been proven to be not completely competitive technologies. LoRa has its own value, and NB-IoT has its own space.

LoRa technology was first developed by French company Cycleo (founded in 2009) as a patented spread spectrum wireless modulation technology. In 2012, Cycleo was acquired by US company Semtech for approximately US$5 million. After the acquisition, Semtech, in order to promote other companies to participate in the LoRa ecosystem, jointly established the LoRa Alliance with Actility, Cisco, IBM and other manufacturers in February 2015.

The reason why it is repeatedly rumored to be "dead" is that LoRa mainly operates in the global free frequency bands (i.e. unlicensed frequency bands), including 433, 868, 915 MHz, etc. Unlicensed frequency bands have the problem of being designated for application or market abuse, so the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has repeatedly issued announcements or drafts for comments in order to better manage the use of frequency bands, not targeting LoRa.

LoRa is the physical layer or wireless modulation for creating long-distance communication connections. Compared with traditional FSK technology and short-distance RF technology with insufficient stability and security, LoRa is based on CSS modulation technology (Chirp Spread Spectrum), which greatly increases the communication range while maintaining low power consumption. CSS technology has been widely used in military and space communications for decades, and has the characteristics of long transmission distance and strong anti-interference.

We all know that in order to achieve low power consumption over long distances, NB-IoT needs to sacrifice the frequency and amount of data transmission, but LoRa does not need to do that at all. Its own technical advantages allow LoRa to well complete long-distance, low-power networking applications. At the same time, compared to NB-IoT, LoRa, which operates based on free frequency bands, has another outstanding advantage: it does not require the construction of base stations, and the networking is flexible and simple.

In summary, LoRa is widely favored by IoT practitioners because of its low power consumption, long transmission distance, flexible networking and many other features that are very consistent with the IoT's fragmentation, low cost, and large-connection needs.

Of course, for a technology to be successfully implemented, we cannot simply rely on technological advantages; it needs a large number of firm supporters.

The global promotion of LoRa technology mainly relies on the LoRa Alliance. Although it is not as legitimate as NB-IoT, which comes from the global standardization organization 3GPP, the growth rate of the LoRa Alliance is amazing. According to the LoRa Alliance, there are currently more than 500 members in the alliance.

The LoRa Alliance is mainly responsible for promoting the operation of LoRaWAN around the world and is the specification of the LoRa Alliance members. LoRaWAN is a set of communication protocols and system architectures designed for LoRa long-distance communication networks. It defines end-to-end standard specifications for using LoRa technology, including IoT market security, energy efficiency, roaming, and configuration on-boarding. The main reason why it has been widely accepted by alliance members is that LoRaWAN has fully considered several factors such as node power consumption, network capacity, QoS, security, and network application diversity in the design of protocols and network architecture. At the demand level, it can be seen from the official website of the LoRa Alliance that there are multiple fields, including smart agriculture, smart buildings, smart cities, smart environments, smart homes, smart industries, smart infrastructure, smart metering, transportation, logistics, and supply chains. LoRa currently provides connectivity capabilities similar to wide-area networks, and there are outdoor, indoor, and even desktop router-sized devices on the gateway market. Everyone can build their own LoRa network, just as convenient as using Wifi connections.

At the operator level, according to statistics from the LoRa Alliance, as of the end of December 2018, more than 100 network operators around the world have deployed LoRaWAN, with particularly significant growth in the Asia-Pacific and European regions, which increased by 30% and 50% respectively in 2018. At the same time, data from market analysis agencies also confirmed the explosion of LoRa applications, showing that the number of terminal devices connected to the LoRaWAN network increased three times from the beginning of 2018 to the end of the year.

Chip supply is a major shortcoming in the development of LoRa technology. Currently, only a few manufacturers in the world are supplying LoRa chips. In addition to Semtech, only Alibaba and ST are supplying SoCs based on LoRa technology, and Alibaba's SoC is from Aojie Technology. The remaining Qundeng Technology, National Technology and Microchip all provide LoRa solutions based on packaging technology. In general, Semtech is the only company that provides a complete solution for LoRa technology. In this regard, an engineer also complained to the editor of Yifei.com: "The choice of LoRa is too narrow. Unlike NB-IoT, there are many participating manufacturers and all kinds of chips."

From the overall development perspective, LoRa technology is stuck in the chip sector. If there is no abundant chip supply, the solution side will also be limited. However, market analysis agencies are still optimistic about the future of LoRa technology. According to data released by IHS Markit, more than 40% of future gateway applications are expected to be based on LoRa devices.

The future of LoRa technology in China

The announcement of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has touched the nerves of Chinese LoRa practitioners. As the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology mentioned in the announcement, Europe and the United States have their own frequency bands for ISM applications. Only the third-zone countries including China have not designated frequency bands for ISM applications in the 100MHz-1GHz frequency band. It can be said that LoRa technology faces different national conditions in China. So how is the development of LoRa technology in China?