LoRa Alliance All‑Member Meeting & Open House in Paris: Key Takeaways & Market Insights

Link Labs recently returned from the 2015 LoRa Alliance All‑Member Meeting & Open House in Paris, where the growing demand for low‑power wide‑area networks (LPWAN) was evident. Below are key insights from the event.

What is the LoRa Alliance?

The LoRa Alliance is a nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing industry‑wide standards for LPWAN. It currently boasts 90 member companies, 42 of which joined within the first six months of its launch in January 2015.

See Also: What is LoRa?

During the open session, Ståle Pettersen, the former executive director of the LoRa Alliance and a senior executive at Semtech, highlighted the Alliance’s ambition to become the de‑facto LPWAN standard by 2017. While this target is ambitious, it reflects the industry’s momentum. Link Labs maintains a neutral stance on early standardization but acknowledges potential competition from upcoming 3GPP and IEEE IoT standards.

LPWAN companies should prioritize rapid customer adoption. By engaging OEMs and system integrators early, they can secure market share before standardization gains full traction. Although LTE and mesh networks will coexist, LPWAN’s early‑mover advantage remains critical.

LoRa Alliance Meeting Overview

The conference drew nearly 300 participants worldwide, with the Friday open session selling out to capacity.

Link Labs and other exhibitors showcased hardware and software solutions in the marketplace. While some presentations emphasized interoperability, others focused on vertical applications such as smart streetlights and asset tracking. Link Labs highlighted both—presenting interoperable hardware and customer‑specific solutions.

Here are a few themes our team noted over the course of the meeting:

1. Interoperability: Having some level of interoperability is the whole reason the LoRa Alliance exists. Whether alliance members agree on the architecture of the technology or not, it’s good to get everyone in the same room. That way, everyone can work together to grow LPWAN technologies.
2. Prematurity: There is a lot of optimism and excitement surrounding LPWAN interoperability, which is a step in the right direction. But, in our opinion, there is still a lot of work to be done to create a fully standardized LPWAN system.
3. Geographical constraints: It’s clear that there is a lot more momentum for LPWAN standardization in Europe than there is in the U.S. This is primarily due to geography—it’s simply easier to deploy this interoperable network in smaller European countries than it is in the U.S. There are a few countries working toward standardization here in North America, but they’re moving considerably slower than European companies.

Additional Key Points Of Interest From LoRa Alliance Members

• Bouygues, a French mobile network operator (MNO), began rolling out its network in June and is still pushing forward with a national network that covers all of France.
• Proximus, an MNO that covers Belgium and Luxembourg, will begin rolling out its LoRaWAN network in Belgium and Luxembourg in September.
• LoRaWAN 1.1 is due to be released later this year. It is primarily addressing bug fixes and other small changes based on member and operator feedback. LoRaWAN 2.0 is estimated to be released in mid‑to‑late 2016. Some of the features expected to be included in LoRaWAN 2.0 are roaming, network‑initiated multicast and Class B support, and possibly a few standard profiles for payloads.

Takeaways

The event underscored the excitement surrounding LPWAN and the robust market for alternative protocols—LoRaWAN, Symphony Link, SIGFOX, and On‑Ramp Wireless.

As a provider of end‑to‑end solutions, Link Labs values the opportunity to support customers beyond product and software integration. The meeting marked a significant step toward greater LPWAN interoperability.