Issue link: https://resources.mouser.com/i/1442769
Cellular vs. LPWAN for Mid-Range Home Automation Connectivity 18 While 5G realities may push cellular to an even greater IoT presence, LPWANs can still play, especially on a competitive-pricing basis. Connectivity is a major hurdle for home automation Internet of Things (IoT) network designers. A myriad of competing and typically incompatible standards exist at the edge, while closer to home, wireless carriers and low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) are the two choices. The cellular network industry is fine tuning its offerings and enhancing LTE-based capabilities while LPWANs rely on multiple standards (some proprietary). There exist advantages and disadvantages to each. What's at Stake? There is a lot of money to be made: Both solutions charge a fee for connected devices, and because IoT device numbers are burgeoning, the fees are adding up fast. Global wireless carriers have approximately 2.3 billion subscribers, cultivated and added over 30 years. In just a fraction of that time, since IoT services arrived on the scene, more than 8.4 billion IoT devices have been connected, and in just two more years, experts estimate that this figure will reach 20 billion. If half of these IoT devices connect to the Internet, the estimated annual revenues for providers will be staggering. While two competing and very diverse solutions exist, not one single standard satisfies all requirements. However, regardless of the application, services that wireless carriers and LPWAN providers offer have the common goal of empowering periodic communication from tiny sensors on host devices to external points throughout several years, using coin cell battery power. Although both types of service providers perform satisfactorily, they each use a variety of techniques specifically for IoT implementation. They limit the amount and duration of data transmission and times when sensors are communicating, using very low data rates and narrow bandwidths. Cellular vs. LPWANs The cellular industry has unique advantages for the IoT. Nearly ubiquitous LTE coverage in the US is supported by several hundred thousand macro base stations and three times as many small cells. Ease of updates and a long-standing history of connectivity provision is true for wireless solutions as well. The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) that manages development and issuance of wireless standards ramped up its IoT focus with Release 13, which was finalized mid-2016. The 5G cellular standards that will release in 2019 are expected to bolster the already solid platform. In comparison, LPWAN is the new solution that must be built from the ground up. LPWAN systems cost less to build and deploy than By Carolyn Mathas for Mouser Electronics