Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1423217
Wireless Broadband Alliance & LoRa Alliance ® Proprietary Copyright © 2020 Wireless Broadband Alliance & LoRa Alliance Report Title: Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN ® Trials Issue Date: November 2020 Version: Final 6 1. Executive Summary Selecting an intelligent multi-radio strategy is becoming increasingly more important to succeed in a connected world. Operators and enterprises are looking to identify, assess, and deploy the optimum form of connectivity that meets the best quality of service for their application at the most compelling total cost of ownership (TCO), primarily including coverage and cost (for both implementation and maintenance). Selecting the wrong radio strategy can have a negative impact on the quality of service, increase costs and deteriorate security. Until a few years ago, radio connectivity options were focused primarily on cellular connectivity, Wi-Fi connectivity or customized/proprietary private-network connectivity. Today's connectivity options however are able to take advantage of licensed and license-exempt spectrums to include cellular IoT, private LTE, private 5G, Wi-Fi and Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) IoT networks such as LoRaWAN ® . Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN are two of the most widely adopted license-exempt technologies and together they address a large proportion of current IoT use cases. Both technologies are disrupting private-public business models and enable participation in the 5G spectrum. In September 2019, the LoRa Alliance and the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) jointly published "The Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN Deployment Synergies" white paper, intended to demonstrate how these two widely deployed IoT connectivity technologies can be utilized to effectively support a vast array of use cases. This paper shows to Wi-Fi network owners and/or network service providers how LoRaWAN can be deployed on top of an existing Wi-Fi network and, as a complement, allows for operational cost optimization. It summarizes the strengths of each technology, their individual positions in the IoT ecosystem, their complimentary nature, and the way that both technologies can be easily deployed simultaneously. It also provides testimonials to illustrate successful real use case deployment. The current white paper "Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN Trials - An overview of use cases across regions combining two technologies" takes it a step further and provides details on practical trials and proof of concept deployments (POC's), representing a variety of uses cases implemented across different geographies and verticals. As Service Providers (operators, ISPs) and businesses are looking to deploy digital transformation programs and are facing increasing complexities around security, large scale deployments, cloud/ edge architecture, quality of service (QoS), whilst ROI benefits are not always clear, these trials aim to demonstrate best practices and enable the market to seamlessly develop Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN commer- cial opportunities. The trials have demonstrated that hybrid connectivity options can increase the market potential overall and provide a stronger ROI and enhanced solutions. The Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN trials paper outlines best practise deployment approaches, explains the practicalities of network planning for multi-radio access network (RAN) access points and sensors, and includes clear examples of the return on investment.