There is a selection of LPWA antenna types that benefit individual applications, especially in the case of NB-IoT and LTE-M antennas. As many LPWAN applications are compact, remote, and have limited battery capacity, many of them have embedded LPWA antennas integrated to enable the miniaturisation of designs. Embedded SMD, FPC and PCB antennas all suit different designs by providing different integration benefits.
What are the main LPWAN technologies?
Sigfox and LoRaWAN
NB-IoT
LTE-M
Sigfox and LoRaWAN
Sigfox and LoRaWAN are proprietary developed LPWAN technologies that provide benefits for specialised applications. Sigfox is one of the most widely deployed LPWANs and operates on the unlicensed 868MHz frequency band (in Europe), connecting over 10 million devices in over 70 countries. Sigfox is used for its impressive range (~1000km in line-of-site applications) and power efficiency but is restricted by its low data rate capacity.
LoRaWAN (Long-Range Wide Area Network) operates on similar bands to Sigfox, 867-869MHz depending on the region. Similar to Sigfox, it is used for its long-range and its features include bi-directional communication, end-to-end security and power efficiency. However, LoRaWAN can exhibit latency in certain environments, making it a specialised choice. Additionally, devices that use either Sigfox antennas or LoRaWAN antennas are susceptible to interference as they operate on populated frequency bands. Because of this, there are better alternatives for a range of IoT devices.
NB-IoT
NB-IoT is an open narrowband radio technology, developed for internet-of-things devices on LPWAN networks. As the name suggests, it operates on the very narrow bandwidth of 200 kHz, making it only suitable for ultra-low complexity devices. That said, these devices that utilise both low power NB-IoT antennas and high efficiency NB-IoT antennas, exhibit impressive battery life without the sacrifice of connectivity range of antenna size. Moreover, they also support the use of low-profile NB-IoT antennas for ultra-small devices, such as remote sensors, and rarely run into interference.
LTE-M
LTE-M is another form of LPWAN technology that is developed and standardised by 3GPP; a partnership of telecoms standards organisations that seek to develop and optimise telecommunications technologies. Comparatively to NB-IoT, LTE-M is optimised for higher bandwidth applications, and operates on the higher 1.4 mHz frequency band. This provides a peak data rate of approximately 350Kbps, whereas NB-IoT exhibits <100Kbps. The trade off, however, is that LTE-M requires more bandwidth and is more costly as a result.
