Annual Growth Rate Of 50% Lora Technology, Internet Big Factory High Hopes?

In 2019, a brand mobile phone manufacturer demonstrated an example of the two models of mobile phones that could achieve text or even voice calls without signal.

Although the technology is really going to be implemented, it will be faced with the examination and approval of information supervision and other links. It may not be easy to implement. But behind this technology LoRa has entered many communications and Internet factories in the past two years, becoming one of the most important areas for big factories to compete.

This is a technical standard for low power wide area IOT business. Although another type of standard NB-IoT (narrowband IOT) is perhaps more well known, the scale of the two is the leader in this field.

According to Sai Di think tank, it is expected that in the next 2017-2023 years, the LPWAN (low power wide area network) will achieve a rapid growth in the number of connections by more than 100% CAGR. In 2019, NB-IoT and LoRa will continue to lead the entire market in the public LPWAN network and private LPWAN network on the basis of the previous large-scale, and the share of the two shares will reach 75%.

However, compared with the NB-IoT field, including HUAWEI, the big plant's patent technology, the main obstacle for LoRa to develop in China is that its underlying core technology is in the hands of semiconductor manufacturer Semtech. Before domestic manufacturers wanted to cut into this field, they had to find Semtech to be authorized by IP, so their localization capability and process attracted much attention.

Recently, Yang Fenglin, deputy general manager of Pan Qi microelectronics in Shanghai, told an exclusive interview with the economic news reporters in twenty-first Century that LoRa technology needs deep integration of radio frequency and communication technologies, which needs accumulation in certain industries. He said that his company already has a certain ability to bottom up, but the vigorous development of a technology and opening up is still the core way. "Do your best to have more initiative to negotiate and improve performance and ecological construction. Of course, we hope to get the attention and support from the national level in the relevant open ecology.

Annual growth rate of 50% LoRa

In 2016, ZTE set up a subsidiary holding company called Kela technology in Suzhou and launched the China LoRa application Alliance (CLAA). This has also opened the curtain of domestic development and application in the field of LoRa.

With the international LoRa alliance in 2018 ushered in Ali, Tencent, Unicom, tower and other giants, LoRa's fortress in the Chinese market has basically been established. According to a number of people in the industry to the twenty-first Century economic news reporter, in recent years, the number of terminal nodes in LoRa has increased by 50%-60% at the same time. Among them, China has contributed half of the demand, and is the largest LoRa market in the world.

During the new crown outbreak, LoRa technology gave full play to its advantages. Yang Fenglin said, for example, in temporary construction of shelter hospitals or even some fixed point treatment hospitals, many scenarios have enabled LoRa or LoRa like technology solutions, including signal collection, information exchange of hospital signs, etc. In the aspect of flow control, LoRa technology can also help speed up the information interaction of nodes in the cell.

"During the epidemic, the overall LoRa landing has an increasing trend." He said, of course, for those projects that were not so urgent, the planned construction and landing process would have an impact.

Why can LoRa be able to land quickly in the Information Interaction scenario of temporary outbreak demand? This is actually one of the biggest differences between LoRa technology and NB-IoT.

In essence, it is related to network construction. An internal data from ZTE shows that LoRa is a low-power wide area wireless access technology that operates on the unauthorized spectrum. NB-IoT is working on the authorized spectrum and designed on the basis of cellular technology. In short, the operation of NB-IoT needs to be deployed on the carrier network, and LoRa is based on the self built network, which can include the private network and private network deployment.

Yang Fenglin further analysis, therefore, in contrast, data based on LoRa technology is more private, which is especially important for large and medium-sized eco enterprises. It also explains why Alibaba, Tencent, Unicom and other giants are willing to make breakthroughs here. Based on the non cellular network, LoRa technology can exchange information through autonomous networks in some extreme environments.

He pointed out that in the era of 3G-4G, operators basically dominated the entry of wireless Internet. With the maturity of LoRa in the domestic ecosystem, some enterprises can build their own wireless LAN and set up protocols.

This allows Internet companies to become mobile Internet operators, and controlling the flow of some traffic entries will be a great opportunity for the future. "Internet vendors have their own advantages in understanding and connecting scenarios, and have great imagination in further exploring applications." Yang Fenglin said.

In addition, LoRa will perform better than NB-IoT in terms of low power consumption. Yang Fenglin analysis, by contrast, the NB-IoT based protocol is more complex and other reasons, resulting in power consumption and standby current will be about ten times the LoRa technology. But LoRa can guarantee more in-depth indoor network coverage, such as setting up a gateway in a building, which can access all floors or even basement.

Localization acceleration

Now that LoRa has unique technical advantages, why does NB-IoT look so high in China? This is largely related to the autonomy of the underlying technology, and is considered by the industry to be a "bruising" of LoRa's expansion in China.

In view of the technical characteristics, LoRa used to be used in military scenes earlier. Since then, Semtech has quietly become the leading enterprise in the field of LoRa, holding the rich underlying technology and gradually landing the scene into the commercial market.

Because of the accumulation of many underlying technologies, it is hard for backward firms to build their own underlying technologies in the LoRa field and bypass the patent barriers of Semtech. During this period, Semtech led CISCO, IBM and other manufacturers to establish LoRa alliance, only to have today's expanding ecosystem.

"NB-IoT is the open underlying agreement. Many Chinese manufacturers, such as HUAWEI, have mastered some important patent technologies." Yang Fenglin explained that in contrast, chip or module enterprises should be developed and landed on the basis of LoRa technology, basically requiring Semtech authorization IP or directly using Semtech chips to do SIP level chip development, which will bring certain troubles to the localization of LoRa industry system. The active Alibaba has also been promoted by obtaining the IP authorization of Semtech.

Domestic understanding of the LoRa industry is gradually deepening. In 2019, the State Ministry of industry and Commerce issued a series of specifications for large-scale networking. It also pointed out that 433MHz does not belong to China's ISM (mainly covering industrial, scientific and medical) bands in 52.

This once triggered the industry's judgment of LoRa technology being "cool" in China, but it was subsequently overthrown. To this end, Yang Fenglin told the twenty-first Century economic report reporter that in China, the frequency of LoRa is 470-510MHZ, so it will not be affected. "The Ministry of industry and Commerce has standardized the frequency band used in the entire LoRa technology, which is done in conjunction with technical requirements, which is equivalent to issuing a license to LoRa technology."

"We believe that a vigorous development and opening up of a technology is the core way, similar to the development path of technology such as WiFi and Bluetooth. The bottom of the core is not open, it is easy to bring doubt about industrial safety. Yang Fenglin said, "of course, we can not ask others, as a member of the bottom technology construction, we can only do ourselves well."

It is reported that Pan Kai microelectronics has mastered the core technology in the field of LoRa chips, and industrialization is advancing rapidly. This year will mass production of non cellular wide area physical layer chips. "We have made a lot of progress and bypassed the existing technology patents, which is a common challenge for the industry. In fact, many manufacturers are tackling this problem, and believe that the industry will show a healthy development trend in the future.

Yang Fenglin told reporters that in terms of software ecosystem construction, in fact, Ali, Tencent, science and technology and other related agreements have been built and ecological. "We also hope that more partners will take part in the construction of the whole technology, and try to promote self controlled localization."

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