Challenge the NB-IoT and LoRa market structure? LPWAN field ushered in a new round of competition

In recent years, the Internet of Things industry has reached a consensus on the "60%-30%-10%" structure of Internet of Things, that is, 60% of the connections are realized through low-rate networks, 30% of connections are realized through medium-rate networks, and 10% The connection is achieved through a high-speed network. Among them, the main force that accounts for 60% of low-speed networks is low-power wide-area network (LPWAN).

There is always no shortage of innovators in the market. Since the industry initially realized the value of LPWAN, a variety of technologies have been continuously launched and commercial competitions have started. After several years of rushing into the sand, two types of mainstream communication technologies, NB-IoT and LoRa, have now emerged in this field. However, the current market still has new players entering the game, but the market environment and various technical positioning have undergone significant changes.

In addition to NB-IoT and LoRa, new players are also expanding their boundaries

According to public information, as of the end of 2020, both NB-IoT and LoRa have achieved billions of connections. Large-scale connections have made them the mainstream technology in the LPWAN field, and they have also driven the ecological prosperity and cost reduction of these two types of technologies. However, NB-IoT and LoRa do not fully cover all low-power, low-speed connection fields. In recent years, a number of domestic LPWAN technologies have been continuously launched for commercial use, and they have made efforts in some vertical fields. Typical representative companies that can be obtained from public information include Dao Biotech, Panqi Microelectronics, Shenglu IoT, and Changzhou Qianmi Electronics.

Established in 2019, Dao Biotech Union’s core technology is TurMass™’s LPWAN communication technology. TurMass™ uses mMIMO (large-scale multi-antenna) narrowband transmission technology and integrates a unique system architecture. The LPWAN technology is improved in terms of networking flexibility and overall cost. Its core is a license-free mMIMO random access technology. The entire system includes terminal chips, relays, gateways, and network servers.

Panqi Microelectronics mainly promotes Chirp-IoT's LPWAN technology. By introducing multi-dimensional transmission modulation technology, the transmission rate and network capacity are increased, and the probability of interference is reduced. Currently, Panqi Microelectronics has launched the Chirp-IoT-based terminal chip PAN3028 and gateway PAN3031.

Shenglu IOT’s main promotion is its self-developed DDA (Dynamic Encryption Space Dense Coverage Ant Colony Mode). This technology predecessor is Spider technology. It has advantages in communication distance, low-cost network coverage, low-power design, anti-interference design, and communication. Reliability, data security, massive terminal access, robustness, ease of use, adaptive frequency band selection and other aspects are optimized.

The main product of Qianmi Electronics is the wireless communication protocol called LaKi, which includes the complete technological innovation of the MAC layer communication protocol and the PHY layer. At the end of March 2020, it launched the first batch of LaKi-based mass-produced radio frequency SoC chip LK2400.

In addition to the mainstream NB-IoT and LoRa technologies, these new LPWAN technologies are actually facing obvious pressure to survive, and therefore must be innovated in multiple aspects to be able to occupy a place in the market. Generally speaking, the direction of these technological innovations is to make up for the shortcomings of NB-IoT and LoRa.

From the public information, the new technology propaganda will more or less compare the technical indicators with NB-IoT and LoRa. Only from the perspective of technical indicators, they basically have certain advantages over NB-IoT and LoRa in many aspects. In addition, in terms of network deployment, these new technical solutions also adopt more flexible methods. For example, they basically use relays and self-organizing networks to achieve rapid and flexible deployment.

However, the leading of technical indicators does not mean the leading of commercial use, and the final commercial use is affected by many factors. Take mobile communication technology as an example. The mainstream technology is not the most advanced in technical indicators, but it is the technical system agreed by all stakeholders. Therefore, the industrial ecology is very complete. For non-mainstream technology systems to gain market recognition, leading technical indicators is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition. It also requires appropriate ecological and market strategies.

Learning from history: the first round of competition for LPWAN technology

In 2015, low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) began to become a hot spot in the field of Internet of Things, and then experienced a process of blooming flowers and contending among a hundred schools of thought. In 2017, the author wrote his first monograph "Internet of Things Sniper Rifle-Low-power Wide Area Network Industry Market Interpretation", once summarized related technologies, preliminary statistics found that those who have the spirit of technology and market innovation launched More than ten kinds of low-power wide-area network technologies have formed a huge family, each of which is eager to try, and strive for its own technology to win in the crowd.

In general, the entire low-power wide-area network family can be divided into two camps, and the division of this camp is based on whether the radio spectrum used by various technologies belongs to the licensed spectrum, so the technology based on the licensed spectrum and the technology based on the unlicensed spectrum are formed The two camps of technology. Through public information collection, the main technologies of the two camps are shown in the following table:

Main technologies of the two camps of low-power wide area network

It can be seen that although there are many companies and organizations participating in the research and development of low-power wide-area network technologies in the world, technologies based on licensed spectrum are mainly promoted by the communication standardization organization 3GPP; unlicensed spectrum technologies are composed of a large number of scattered companies and organizations. Organize to complete, each owns intellectual property rights and promotes commercial use. This situation has a certain relationship with the right to use the radio frequency spectrum.

It can be said that since 2015, the LPWAN technology family has experienced the first round of contention among a hundred schools of thought. After a few years have passed, after a round of reshuffle, most of the technology has faded out of people's vision, leaving only a few to open up territory. Among them, NB-IoT and LoRa have become undisputed mainstream technology systems, and other technology systems have finally ushered in different fates and endings due to strategic choices.

Sigfox once had the opportunity to be among the first camp of LPWAN, but because of its insistence on global deployment of public networks facing the dilemma of lack of funds, it now has to shrink; RPMA once swept the Internet of Things field of rhetoric, now has been completely forgotten; even 3GPP The eMTC of the system, because it has not received the support of Chinese operators, can only maintain a certain scale overseas. It is worth noting that ZETA, as the LPWAN technology launched in the same period of the year, has survived tenaciously despite the fact that most of the technologies are withdrawn from the market due to its adherence to the market strategy for vertical industry applications. Although it has not entered the main trend list, it is still in the logistics, Vertical fields such as architecture have formed large-scale applications and built their own industrial ecology.

Different characteristics of the new round of LPWAN technology competition

As mentioned above, a variety of new LPWAN technologies have been put on the market in recent years, competing for 60% of the low-speed IoT connection market. Compared with the LPWAN technology competition that emerged in 2015, this time can be said to be the second round of LPWAN. The battle for technology has shown different characteristics.

First of all, players in this round of LPWAN have a clear understanding of its positioning.

A few years ago, when NB-IoT and LoRa had not yet formed a large-scale connection, many LPWAN technologies were ambitious and believed that they had the opportunity to unify the rivers and lakes and become the core IoT communication standard. A typical example is Ingenu, which launched RPMA technology. In 2016, John Horn, the CEO of Ingenu at the time, was full of confidence. He spoke amazingly and constantly bombarded other technologies. He believed that RPMA would fully crush LoRa and Sigfox and would work with NB-IoT. Become the mainstream standard in the future Internet of Things. Another typical representative is Sigfox, a "spoiler" in the Internet of Things market. It appeared in the posture of subverting telecom operators. After many record financings, it finally failed to support the ambition of becoming a global Internet of Things network operator. With the passage of time, most of the LPWAN technologies that still exist in the market today do not position themselves as the Internet of Things standards that dominate the world, but focus more on a few key industry applications, and enterprises are more pragmatic to explore their own value.

Secondly, the LPWAN market has been verified on a large scale, and new players have avoided many detours.

In 2015, when LPWAN players started the first round of competition, the low-rate IoT market had very few connections at that time. This field was basically a blank market. Various application scenarios were only theoretically feasible scenarios. For large-scale application verification, manufacturers are testing the waters, and they all believe that they can enter the corresponding market. Today, after 5-6 years of experimentation, there have been several application scenarios with a scale of tens of millions of connections in the LPWAN market, and more than 10 application scenarios with a scale of millions of connections. Various barriers and deficiencies are sufficient in the application process. Expose it so that latecomers avoid detours. In addition, the number of NB-IoT and LoRa connections has exceeded 100 million, becoming the mainstream technology and de facto standard in this field. In particular, NB-IoT has formed a large-scale network infrastructure, and the quality of network coverage has continued to improve. The advantages in some scenarios are gradually It appears that latecomers will also avoid direct competition with the application scenarios of these mainstream technology systems based on the analysis of their advantages and disadvantages. On this basis, new LPWAN players can use their strengths and avoid weaknesses and focus on vertical areas where they can give full play to their advantages.

In fact, ZETA has been able to survive the cracks of the mainstream technology system in the past few years and occupy a place in the vertical field. It has also made correct decisions in terms of its own positioning and market verification. In the author's view, the new independent innovative LPWAN players who have entered the game in recent years can fully learn from the experience of ZETA.

With the development of the Internet of Things industry, more diversified scenarios continue to emerge. A set of technical systems cannot meet the communication needs of all scenarios. Even in the LPWAN field that requires low speed, low power consumption, and long distance, specific scenarios in each industry must be considered. Due to many factors, a single LPWAN technology cannot cover this 60% connected field, which also gives the diversified LPWAN technology system the opportunity to survive and commercialize. The only difference from 5-6 years ago is that the current market structure has formed a trend in which NB-IoT and LoRa occupy the mainstream. This pattern may undergo certain changes in the short term. The market share of mainstream technologies may decline due to the commercial use of other LPWAN technologies. However, new entrants should not only focus on the leading technical indicators, but also have more influence on the market. Clear understanding and more pragmatic positioning can occupy a place.

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