Free vs Enterprise LoRaWAN

How you can have the BEST of BOTH worlds.

In IoT, the Telcos do not rule the world like they do in mobile, broadband and other technologies.

LoRaWAN, the low-power open IoT ecosystem, has enabled a revolution in the telecommunications industry where the technology is not tied up in the hands of just a few huge multinationals, but has grown exponentially from the grass roots through globally consistent open technology standards, open-source initiatives and using lowest-cost-first principals.

Yes, there are Telcos rolling out LoRaWAN around the globe, but that’s not the big story. Everyone knows that a Telco can put up millions of dollars worth of network infrastructure and then ask you to sign up to it. What a lot of people don’t know is that, with LoRaWAN, there is a very viable alternative…Public/Private LoRaWAN.

What I'm talking about is free LoRaWAN coverage that is growing exponentially all over the planet and created by its users, but also with the ability to be truly “Enterprise Grade”.

If you haven’t heard of The Things Network (TTN), then please do yourselves a favour and watch this 90 second YouTube on how it started and what it is 

Things have really moved on since that video was made in 2016 (excuse the pun) with over 10,000 TTN gateways already established, including over 600 in Australia. The power of The Things Network and the reason for its viral popularity is simple. Free LoRaWAN connectivity for anyone on the planet. Yes you heard that right. The wonderful boys and girls in Amsterdam are allowing you to use their global LoRAWAN Network Cloud Servers to connect your LoRaWAN IoT sensors anywhere in the world…for FREE! 

So, what is this achieving? The lowest possible cost to deploy IoT sensors, and to gather data over wide areas, at scale – anywhere.

Now if you think the TTN “free” business model is new...it is not. Google, Facebook, and many SaaS companies employ this “Freemium” model. Think about it. How much do you pay for your personal Chrome browser or your Gmail account? How much do you pay for using GoogleEarth? Nothing! So how is it that Alphabet (Googles parent) is one of the largest companies on the planet? It’s because they give away some awesomely useful online tools but make their money from adding value and services that you can pay for in addition to the free product. TTN is the same. You get awesome global free IoT connectivity anywhere you want it. But how does TTN fund that?  After all, "there’s no such thing as a free lunch”… right?

The same “Freemium” approach is being taken by TTN. TTN is a not-for-profit foundation that has one mission of providing free LoRaWAN connectivity for anyone who wants to use it, but offering Enterprise Grade LoRaWAN for those who are happy to pay for it...

TTN’s bold manifesto

"Everything that carries power will be connected to Internet eventually.

Controlling the network that makes this possible means controlling the world. 

We believe that this power should not be restricted to a few people, companies or nations. Instead this should be distributed over as many people as possible without the possibility to be taken away by anyone. 

We therefore founded "The Things Network”."

Pretty powerful words. Think about Linux as a close analogy. Linux is now running around 90% of the servers on the internet. It was laughed at 25 years ago when it was first stated that an Open Source operating system could be a serious challenger to the likes of Digital Equipment Corporation (remember them?), IBM, HP, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and a plethora of other massive “commercial” operators. Nobody is laughing anymore. A small company called RedHat started offering products and services to Linux users in the 90's. Last year RedHat was acquired by IBM for USD $34 billion!

Open Source initiatives like Linux and TTN have many advantages, not the least being security, which is improved by the eyes of legions of contributing developers. The same Open Source TTN IoT network server, with the addition of some Enterprise features, can also be deployed as a private network for which you pay a license fee to The Things Industries (TTI) - the parent entity to TTN. That's how they pay for TTN. The major benefit you receive is a Service Level Assurance (SLA) – just like the Telcos offer, but with consumer choice built in from the get go. So yes you do get a "free lunch" but you have to pay for desert. Let me explain.

Not Industrial Grade?

 TTN is sometimes derided by its critics as “not industrial grade” or somehow “insecure”. These two assertions are both demonstrably wrong. TTN infrastructure, like Linux, is just as robust as you want to make it and LoRaWAN as a protocol is highly secure and designed by some the best in the business, like IBM, Honeywell and Cisco, who are members of the LoRaWAN custodial body, the LoRa Alliance. Every packet in LoRaWAN is encrypted.  The TTN infrastructure sits on the AWS cloud, another Enterprise grade platform.  TTN can be "industrial grade” in every way except for one thing…there are no Service Level Assurances (SLAs).  In the same way that Gmail does not come with any service guarantees - remember, it’s free - neither does TTN.  In theory Google can switch Gmail off tomorrow and you can’t complain…because you are not paying for it. Same goes for TTN, but like Gmail, the owners are not going to turn it off...because it’s feeding their main business which in this case is the very-Enterprise-grade, The Things Industries (TTI) private network. So, what is TTI?

TTI is the same robust and secure infrastructure that underpins TTN, but offered in a high-availability environment, with Service Level Assurance and as much resilience or dedicated infrastructure as you want to buy. You also get added flexibility and some other management features typical of private networks. This means it is competing on the same footing as some of the Telco operators out there, who are offering “Carrier Grade” LoRaWAN.  Do they have better infrastructure than AWS? I doubt it.  Do they use different gateway equipment to people using TTI? No they don’t.  So what are the LoRaWAN Telco’s customers actually paying extra for?

What does all that mean?

It means that, with TTN/TTI you have the luxury of CHOICE.  You can start by using the free coverage of the The Things Network to get your projects off the ground at the lowest possible cost and only WHEN and IF you need to, you can add the private network Infrastructure-as-a-Service that The Things Industries offers. You can even have sensors connecting to the free TTN coverage sharing the same gateway (base-stations) as the licensed TTI sensors.  This way, you only pay for what you have to. 

Wait?  What? So you can have the best of both worlds? 

Yes you can. Free Public and Enterprise Grade Private LoRaWAN on the same infrastructure.

That, my friends, is gold.  You can choose which sensors you run for free and which you need to pay for to get the “Enterprise Grade” connectivity features, but only when you need them. Consumer choice - and no Telco style lock-ins.

This is why Meshed IoT customers such as large water utilities like Sydney Water Corporation, Shoalhaven Water, and Government entities such as NSW Department of Primary Industries and City of Perth, as well as many Enterprise customers, are putting their trust in TTN, and TTI LoRaWAN for their mission-critical applications, using the Meshed IoT outsourced model.  With this LoRaWAN model, you truly can have it ALL.

Contact Meshed IoT now

Above: Photo of Glenelg Shire Council LoRaWAN gateway, established and managed by Meshed. Below: LoRaWAN Technology Stack