LPWA — Technology to support a tsunami of new connected devices

LPWA — or Low Power Wide Area networks — is a group of wireless technologies which many believe will finally enable the Internet of Things (IoT) in a big way. There are many contending technologies in the LPWA stable, and for those with long memories this may play out like Betamax vs VHS, Wimax vs LTE, or Windows vs Apple. No-one currently knows which one of the many LPWA technologies will win, or whether there will be a co-existence of sorts when the dust settles.

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The three big contenders are NB-IoT, LoRaWAN and Sigfox — all three have some pro’s and cons, but all three aim to do essentially the same thing: to achieve long battery life in the devices that use them to communicate — by reducing the energy that is used to transmit and receive data, to provide connectivity that is relatively cheap, and to offer potentially large geographical coverage.

What is it good for?

Utility metering like water and gas and various smallish sensors such as smoke and fire alarms will be ideal candidates. So too will applications that we can currently only dream of — connected cars, fridges, machines, alarm systems and more.

Why now?

Vodacom and MTN are both rolling out NB-IOT in 2017 and across Africa from 2018, and Telkom — via Fastnet — has been toying with LoRa for a while now. Not only the traditional mobile operators, but also Remgro subsidiary Dark Fibre Africa has decided to join in. DFA will be launching Sigfox in 2017, with big ambitions for national coverage by 2018.

With the big guns going “all in” in such a major way, it is clear that the ecosystem will mature in the next year or two.

How can we help?

Flickswitch helps companies with Internet of Things connectivity, by offering tools to manage spend and to make it easy to interact with telco networks across Africa. Even though it is not yet clear how the operators rolling out the new LPWA networks will charge for them we will be there to help, to advise and to make it easy to use the technology when the time comes.