LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is an LPWAN protocol based on an open specification, first released by the LoRa Alliance in 2015 (v1.0). At the physical layer it uses the chirp spread spectrum (CSS) modulation developed by Semtech; the MAC layer is publicly documented in the standard. The current release line is LoRaWAN L2 1.0.4 and subsequent revisions.

Open standards versus proprietary protocols

Radio protocols in the IoT ecosystem fall into two broad categories. Open standards (LoRaWAN, Zigbee, Thread, Wi-SUN, mioty) are published by independent organisations and may be implemented by multiple manufacturers. Proprietary protocols (Sigfox, various mesh solutions, vendor-specific sub-GHz protocols) are controlled by a single company; should that vendor change its policies or go out of business, deployed field devices may become unusable. This phenomenon is referred to in the literature as vendor lock-in.

Regional frequency plans (RP002)

To comply with ITU radio regulations, LoRaWAN defines per-region frequency plans in the RP002 Regional Parameters document. The principal plans are:

  • EU868 — Europe, including Türkiye; 863–870 MHz under ETSI EN 300 220, with a 1 % duty-cycle limit.
  • US915 — North America; 902–928 MHz, frequency-hopping under FCC Part 15.
  • AS923 — Asia-Pacific; sub-plans around 920–923 MHz.
  • AU915, IN865, KR920, CN470, RU864 — other regions.

Network architecture and server alternatives

A typical LoRaWAN network has four components: end device, gateway (packet forwarder), Network Server (NS) and Application Server (AS). Gateways connect to the NS over an IP backhaul using either the Semtech UDP Packet Forwarder or the more secure Basic Station protocol.

Common network-server implementations:

  • ChirpStack — open source (MIT), self-hosted.
  • The Things Stack — community and enterprise editions.
  • AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN, Actility ThingPark, Loriot — managed cloud services.

On the industrial gateway side, vendors such as Multitech, Kerlink, Cisco, MikroTik, RAK, Dragino and Milesight all implement the same standard; a single rooftop gateway can provide 2–10 km of coverage in open terrain and 1–3 km in dense urban environments.

Device provisioning and key management

LoRaWAN end devices are provisioned at the factory with a DevEUI (64-bit device identifier, IEEE EUI-64), JoinEUI (64-bit join-server identifier) and AppKey (128-bit AES root key). Switching networks is completed simply by registering these three values with the new NS; no field hardware needs to be touched. Traffic is end-to-end encrypted with AES-128; NwkSKey protects network integrity, while AppSKey safeguards application confidentiality.

Payload encoding and interoperability

LoRaWAN payloads are byte-level structures documented by the device manufacturer. Encoder/decoder routines are typically published in JavaScript and can be moved directly between different network servers. For higher-layer interoperability, the LoRa Alliance defines standard service layers such as TS011 Application Layer Clock Sync, TS012 Multicast and TS013 Fragmented Data Block Transport.

Practical note: in total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations, an open standard is not always the cheapest option at initial purchase. Over a five- to ten-year horizon, however, multiple hardware sources, a portable data format and the option to swap network servers provide a decisive advantage during maintenance, expansion and contract-renewal cycles.

Other open LPWAN alternatives

NB-IoT and LTE-M are licensed-band technologies standardised by 3GPP and require mobile-operator infrastructure. mioty (ETSI TS 103 357) uses a telegram-splitting approach to deliver resilience in high-density environments. Wi-SUN is built on IEEE 802.15.4g for mesh-topology field-area networks. The choice depends on geographic coverage, payload size, latency tolerance, battery target and the regulatory framework.