Tata Communications plans to activate India’s first LoRa network for Internet of Things apps nationwide, beginning with deployments in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
The first phase network will cover 400 million people across in India, Tata Communications has said.
At the moment, such investments by mobile operators globally are in “build it and they will come” mode, as until the networks are built out, enterprises will not be able to create and use IoT apps on a wide
But there are rival platforms, with early mobile operator choices globally fragmented. Fragmentation tends not to be good for creating big new markets.
So aside from the risk of stranding investment if demand does not emerge robustly, first movers face the risk of backing technology platforms that might not emerge as the eventual mass market standards.
In addition to ultra-low power consumption, which allows the battery in the end device to last for more than a decade without replacement, the Tata Communications LoRa network supports communications in deep water and up to 50 meters underground. This makes it suitable for use in metro stations and car parks.
The network has a coverage of 15 km.
Mobile operators are placing bets on a number of different network platforms. Orange and Bouygues Telecom in France are using LoRa as well. Altice, on the other hand, will use SigFox.
Vodafone, on the other hand, is using the narrow band Internet of Things platform. China Unicomm also favors NB-IoT.
