Australian M2M technology developer, NetComm Wireless, a major supplier of cellular technology for M2M and IoT communications, has joined the LoRa Alliance, the organisation set up to promoted the LoRaWAN low power wide area network technology developed specifically to support IoT applications.
NetComm is an adopter member along with Australian company National Narrowband Network Communications, which is rolling out a LoRaWAN network in Sydney.
The alliance announced this week that membership had grown to 130 members in the six month since its foundation. “These companies, which include chip and module vendors, network software developers, OEMs and network operators, are all working together to develop an open specification for the next generation of IoT networks and devices,” the Alliance said.
Sponsor members include IBM and Cisco and major telcos Bouyges Telecom and KPN (Netherlands). Other telco members, in the contributor category, are SK Telecom and Swisscom.
New chairman for LoRa Alliance
The Alliance also named as chairman Geoff Mulligan, saying he had “helped design IPv6 and created the 6lowpan protocol, which allows the smallest devices and low-power devices to participate in the IoT.”
Mulligan has worked on IoT technology since 2001, serving at the White House as a Presidential Innovation Fellow working with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on IoT and Additive Manufacturing, and is the US representative to the ISO Smart and Sustainable Cities Strategic Advisory Group. Internet pioneer, Vint Cerf, has referred to him as the “father of the embedded Internet.”
Mulligan said. “The LoRa technology and the LoRaWAN specification are a critical missing piece for the widespread deployment of the Internet of Things. And because the LoRaWAN specification is open, it provides a phenomenal foundation for businesses and operators to develop business models for deployment that best meet the needs of the specific applications, including smart energy, intelligent transportation, industrial manufacturing, commercial building management, and smart cities.”
The Alliance claims that LoRaWAN “is the first LPWAN protocol for sensor, base station and network server providers and will provide interoperability security for network operators deploying large multi-tenanted open networks running multiple applications as well as private networks.”
