Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1423232
Report Title: Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN ® deployment synergies Issue Date: September 2019 Version: 1.0. final version 51 LoRa Alliance & Wireless Broadband Alliance Confidential & Proprietary Copyright © 2019 Improve interconnection and colocation Being massively rolled out in the same types of locations like smart home, smart building and smart city Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN ® need to set-out best practices to interconnect at different levels. The gateway route of interconnection is already partially addressed via the several implementations of Wi-Fi backhauling of LoRa gateways. We see also use cases of LoRaWAN ® backing up Wi-Fi in the smart home. In case of Wi-Fi failure, local devices frames are sent to the cloud servers via LoRaWAN ® Network. The biggest challenge to support device scale-up will be to develop Access Points or home- hubs fully integrating LoRaWAN ® gateway. The cloud route of interconnection is already under implementation, although device authentication process, data models, and security end to end processes could become an area of alignment. Interconnection discussion might probably start to consider the impact on 5G interconnection. Increasing massive cohabitation of devices may lead to discussion to best colocation and device set- up practices (in smart home for example) to avoid spectrum or interferences issues. Develop device intelligence In parallel to the hype of cloud computing-based applications, there is a real development of edge computing or device computing, leading to better handle network issues, as well as optimizing battery consumption by reducing needs of device communication with cloud servers. The goal is to make device more clever or self-sufficient in the decision-making process. So, the chip interconnect route aims to combine Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN ® application driven by the device application software and implemented on a chip module (dual source modules). This interconnection route is the most developed today on the ground via dual chip modules in most of geolocation services. Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN ® location technics are a good example of leveraging strengths of the two technologies. The emergence of Wi-Fi 6 improving throughput and latency could bring new ideas to develop high throughput functions like Firmware Upgrade Over The Air supporting LoRaWAN ® devices, transmitted through the Wi-Fi connection of the device, assuming a trade-off on battery consumption. This can be an area of research, like any other applications benefiting from the strengths of the two technologies. We may imagine a lot of other areas of development. We all know that as usual, the market is going to decide. We probably have here enough on our plate to boost the LoRaWAN ® and Wi-Fi collaboration based on strengthening the two ecosystem experiences on similar market organizations.