LoRaWAN data network

CTWUG General
1

I came across this crowd sourced initiative to create a Long Range Wan (LoRaWAN) to bring together the “Things of the Network” data network.

FastNET South Africa ( a Telkom company) has already launched a nationwide network for the utility sector - for smart metering and monitoring.

The initiative is community based, hence it fits in with the WUG landscape.

Is there space / enthusiasm in the WUG to incorporate and build the LoRaWAN network?
We possibly have the infrastructure to tag this on…

[how to build a LoRaWAN Gateway - on the cheap…]

what’s your thoughts?

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Looking at this, it seems like a interesting idea. Also seems to be in the spirit of the WUG (open community type network).

It would be interesting how this would operate in practice as this is basically providing free internet over “special low power low bandwidth” wifi for devices. I see no reason for wuggers not to experiment with this. It might be even possible to route some of this traffic from these gateways to people that are willing to share their internet for this.

I found this manifesto to be useful in understanding what they want to do.

Are you planning to explore this further?

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Thanks @spin
I do want to start an experimental instance.
Possibilities of incorporating air quality metrics - as I live in the vicinity of the oil refinery and within the zone of the nuclear reactor, a active neighborhood watch camera motion signalling - are on my list…

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How far did you guys go looking into this Issue?

I’m interested as well and i see there is an active group or a group of people interested here in Cape Town

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We are in the process of investigating LoRA for some devices. So from my understanding, this is only ideal for devices that will send a few packets of information every x minutes, or hours, for instance a meter reading every 6 hours or so, etc etc. Not suitable for actual data transfer.

The key feature of the LoRA devices would be that they are battery powered, and due to low power usage, can last several years, and due to operating frequency, the LoRA highsites do not have to actually have any LoS.

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