What is the difference between Sigfox, LoRaWAN and NB-IoT?
All of them belong to the group of Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN technologies)
Each of them is ideal for different applications and use cases.
Semtech LoRa for factory automation
NB-IoT for PoS payment terminals
Sigfox for tracking or utility measurements
See the quick comparison table here:
|
Sigfox |
LoRa |
NB-IoT |
|
|
speed |
Very slow |
Depends on configuration |
fastest |
|
Bi-directional traffic |
Limited, device triggered |
Better, device triggered |
Yes |
|
Worldwide coverage |
Transparent in 60 countries |
Very limited |
Very limited |
|
Battery longevity |
Longest (10-20 years) |
medium |
medium |
|
Capacity |
Very high |
Very low |
medium |
|
Resilience against jamming |
Very high |
low |
low |
|
Can be built as a private network |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
Price of the transceiver |
Cca. 1 USD |
Cca. 10 USD |
Cca. 10 USD |
|
Unified API and interface for data access |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Range in case of local catastrophe |
Very long |
Medium |
Short |
|
Dependant on GSM infrastructure |
No |
No |
Yes |
Check out this webinar, we found it very useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqHOyQK6jJ8
And we've also written a blog post on this topic here: https://simplehw.eu/simple-hardware-and-semtech-lora-and-nb-iot/