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Published on 14 February 2019

Low-Power WANs offer an alternative to 5G for connecting a fast-growing array of basic devices and sensors that transmit small amounts of data.

While 5G networks will reshape wireless communications and support new applications, not all enterprises and municipalities feel the need for speed. These entities have wide-area applications that need only tens or 100s of kilobits to get the job done.

Enter Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWAN). They’re generally described as a type of wireless WAN designed to allow data transfer between far-flung devices with long-life batteries and a central site.

Entities that employ sensor-equipped devices, for example, to transmit small amounts of data from pipelines, utility locations, and meters across wide-areas have embraced LPWANs. That’s chiefly because these offerings are more affordable than higher-speed alternatives and allow for long-lifetime, no to low-maintenance networks.

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