LoRaWan is seeing strong global deployment growth across several vertical markets, including smart buildings, utilities, cities, agriculture and industry, according to the LoRa Alliance’s 2023 End of Year Report.

The report (resources.lora-alliance.org/document/lora-alliance-2023-end-of-year-report) highlights the alliance’s achievements throughout the year, in addition to providing updates on LoRaWan deployments, technology and certification advancements.

Trends highlighted show a continued diversification of the alliance’s collaborative ecosystem, which drove end-to-end IoT. Deployments are delivering strong RoI, which in turn is accelerating the decision-making process for new users and projects.

Smart cities, it found, are increasingly requiring LoRaWan-certified end-devices in their RFPs. And LoRaWan took a leadership position in Industry 5.0 as it met the sustainability, efficiency and quality-of-life requirements.

The benefits and RoI of LoRaWan deployments are exponential, it found, when end users collaborate with system integrators and providers. LoRaWan is also the leader in the emerging satellite-based LPWAN communications market, with multiple member companies delivering networking via satellite and rapidly growing deployments in the sector.

“In 2023, key end markets such as cities, buildings and utilities widely embraced LoRaWan and the RoI it provides, leading to large-scale deployments that sparked further innovation in use cases,” said Donna Moore, CEO of the LoRa Alliance. “The demand for certified LoRaWan devices within these essential sectors continues to grow as it is critical for massive device rollouts. Confidence in LoRaWan was further reinforced through our Accredited Professional programme, which addresses end users’ desire for a way to evaluate vendors’ knowledge of the development and implementation of LoRaWan. As the leader in global LPWAN deployments, we anticipate an even stronger year in 2024.”

The report also noted that IEC and CEN standards validated LoRaWan for smart metering, building on earlier OMS Group and DLMS-UA adoptions and further strengthening LoRaWan’s ability to meet this market’s requirements.

Two technical recommendations were released last year, improving and augmenting LoRaWan functionality, including using CSMA to increase network capacity and multicast D2D communication for direct over-the-air communication between devices.

Several FAQ documents were issued in 2023 to strengthen users’ understanding of recent enhancements to the LoRaWan specification, including payload codec API, relay, IPv6 adaptation layer and security.

Pre-testing of firmware updates over the air (FUOTA) and relay specifications using the LoRaWan Certification Test Tool (LCTT) were enabled, along with more reporting features.

The alliance’s Interoperability Work Group developed tools and procedures to test and certify interoperability between LoRaWan elements and built an interoperability testbed architecture.

Beecham Research conducted an extensive study focusing on networking technologies for smart cities, buildings and utilities, releasing two reports (lpwaninfo.com) offering insights into the evolving landscape of IoT in these markets.

“We continued to see strong growth globally in IoT deployments in 2023, with LoRaWan clearly established as the market leader in LPWANs,” said Robin Duke-Woolley, CEO and chief analyst at Beecham Research (www.beechamresearch.com). “With its established and active ecosystem, considerable involvement of system integrators and providers, and expansive features, including connectivity via satellite, we expect LoRaWan will see strong growth again in 2024 as the IoT continues to mature.”