Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1448190
3 END OF YEAR REPORT 2017 1.0 2017 was a banner year for the LoRa Alliance ™ . Membership now stands at 527, representing 58% growth compared with 2016. New sponsor members include Comcast MachineQ ™ , Renesas Electronics, Alibaba and Hangzhou Lowan Information Technology—exemplifying our diverse, global ecosystem and comprehensive value chain. We now have 62 announced LoRaWAN ™ operators, with coverage expansion ongoing. Many verticals are showing strong opportunities for the LoRaWAN standard: energy & utilities, tracking & logistics, buildings & infrastructure, and agriculture, among others. Our footprint has been large and global, with AMMs taking place in Europe, the U.S. and China, and attendance at all global Mobile World Congress events. Development of the LoRaWAN standard remained aggressive this year. In 2017, we announced the LoRaWAN 1.1 specification, with advances in roaming and security, and the new Backend 1.0 specification, as well as progress on regional parameters—work that is ongoing as we continuously work to expand global coverage. Low-power geolocation is now a reality using the LoRaWAN standard, and members continue to innovate new technologies to better capitalize on the potential of low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs). OVERVIEW "2017 marked the LoRa Alliance's strongest year yet in terms of membership and adoption of the LoRaWAN™ standard. We're excited to work with all of our members in 2018 to ensure that the LoRaWAN protocol is the go-to LPWAN for the Internet of Things." -Geoff Mulligan, LoRa Alliance Chairman