LoRaWAN stands for long-range wide area network. It is a low-speed, low-power WAN (LPWAN) standard sponsored by the LoRa Alliance. The group recently rolled into Philadelphia to highlight LoRa’s wide area networking support; it has a simple network architecture that does not use repeaters or mesh networking.
Philadelphia was an appropriate venue, as one of the new members to the Alliance is Comcast, whose MachineQ LoRa service covers the city with only three access points. This is just a starting point for Comcast in Philadelphia, as more access points would support more devices and provide wider coverage, but it highlights LoRa’s reach.
LoRa trades off throughput for very-low-power operation and high receive sensitivity that translates into long distance support typically measured in kilometers. It fills a niche between other wireless technologies like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as mesh systems like ZigBee and Z-Wave.