Industrial IoT Nets Blossom

LPWA nets rising, large deployments grow

By Rick Merritt, EETimes,, Jan. 31, 2017 – SAN JOSE, Calif. - A new survey shows significant growth in the industrial Internet of Things and rising competition among low power wide area (LPWA) networks. Its release coincides with an update of an industrial IoT framework and word of a new analysis of IoT protocols in the works.

Nearly a third of industrial IoT networks now have more than 1,000 nodes, according to a survey of more than 180 industrial automation professionals by market watcher ON World. That's twice the level of large scale networks it found in a 2014 survey.

The survey found 12 percent of respondents have deployed 1,000 or more wireless field devices at a single site, and 11 percent are using LPWA networks such LoRa or Sigfox. Two out of five respondents are researching, pilot testing or developing LPWA solutions and three-quarters of those developing LPWA plans are targeting new applications that cannot be met with other technologies.

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