What is LPWAN? Low-power wide-area networks

LPWAN stands for low-power wide-area network: a group of wireless technologies built to carry small amounts of data over long distances from devices that run for years on a battery. The IETF’s overview of the field, RFC 8376, describes them as having large coverage areas, low bandwidth, possibly very small packets and long battery life. The best known are two cellular technologies, NB-IoT and LTE-M, and two that use unlicensed bands, LoRaWAN and Sigfox. This guide explains what LPWAN gives up to reach that far, how the two families differ, who runs the network in each case, where Sigfox stands today and how to choose. It belongs with the connectivity guides, next to LoRaWAN explained and NB-IoT vs LTE-M, which go deeper on each.

What LPWAN means

LPWAN is a category that covers several technologies. RFC 8376, published in May 2018, says most technologies in this space aim to support large numbers of very low-cost, low-throughput devices with very low power consumption, so that even battery-powered devices can be deployed for years. Coverage of large areas is the other shared goal, which is where “wide area” comes from.

You will see the same idea written as LPWA, without the N. The GSMA, the mobile operators’ trade body, uses that form for its Mobile IoT networks, and the LoRa Alliance describes LoRaWAN as a Low Power, Wide Area (LPWA) networking specification. They mean the same thing.

The jobs LPWAN is built for are the ones where a device sits far from Wi-Fi, has no mains power, and only needs to report a small reading now and then: water and gas meters, soil moisture probes in a field, tank levels, temperature in a cold store, a tracker on a trailer. The AWS whitepaper on LPWAN draws the boundary usefully. It puts LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, LTE-M and Sigfox in the LPWAN group, and keeps short-range radios such as Bluetooth Low Energy, Zigbee and Z-Wave, ordinary cellular such as LTE Cat 4, and satellite in groups of their own.

What LPWAN gives up for range and battery life

Every LPWAN technology makes the same deal: it sends slowly and rarely so that a weak signal can still be decoded far away, and so that the radio can stay off most of the time. What you give up is data rate, latency, message size and, often, the ability to reach the device whenever you like.

The figures make the point. The AWS whitepaper, published in December 2021 and now marked by AWS as kept for historical reference, lists these, among others:

• LoRaWAN runs at 0.3 to 27 kbit/s, with the rate set by the spreading factor the device uses, and typical latency on the order of seconds.
• Sigfox devices can send up to 12 bytes per uplink message and up to 140 uplink messages a day, and receive up to four downlink messages of 8 bytes a day.
• NB-IoT peaks at about 26 kbps downlink and about 66 kbps uplink in multi-tone mode, with latency from 1.6 to 10 seconds.
• LTE-M, the fastest of the four, has a peak data rate of about 1 Mbps in each direction and typical latency of 10 to 20 ms.

Reachability is the part people miss. A battery LPWAN device sleeps most of the time, and while it sleeps it hears nothing. A Sigfox device, for example, listens for incoming data for only 30 seconds after each uplink, so if it reports once a day, a command sent to it can take up to 24 hours to arrive, as the AWS whitepaper explains. Plan for commands to wait, or choose a technology and power mode that lets the device listen more often.

What you get back is coverage and battery life. The AWS whitepaper says a battery can last several years without replacement on each of the four, given the right device design and settings. How that works for cellular devices is in the power saving section below.

Cellular LPWAN: NB-IoT and LTE-M

The cellular family comes from 3GPP, the body that writes the mobile standards phones use. In its Release 13, 3GPP developed three new technologies for the Internet of Things: EC-GSM-IoT, LTE-M and NB-IoT. LTE-M was first specified as LTE Cat M1 and updated as Cat M2 in Release 14; NB-IoT was first specified as Cat NB1 and updated as Cat NB2 in Release 14, according to the AWS whitepaper. The GSMA calls the pair Mobile IoT and, in a February 2019 release, said these LPWA networks were globally available in licensed spectrum, the frequencies a mobile operator holds for its own use.

In practice that means a mobile operator runs the network. Your device carries a SIM and a cellular modem, and you pay for a data plan, much as for a phone. The M2M SIM guide covers the SIM side, and the guide to MNOs and MVNOs explains whether you buy from the operator that owns the towers or from a reseller on top of it. The same GSMA release noted Verizon’s launch of LTE-M in North America.

The two differ mainly in speed and movement:

• NB-IoT uses a narrow channel. RFC 8376 gives its bandwidth as 180 kHz in both directions. AWS describes it as frequently used for stationary assets such as smart meters and smart parking, because it has limited support for handover between cells.
• LTE-M supports handover, so a device moving from one tower to the next stays attached to the network. That suits fleet and asset tracking.

The NB-IoT vs LTE-M guide compares the two in detail, and the 5G RedCap guide covers the cellular option for devices that need more data than LTE-M carries.

LPWAN in unlicensed bands: LoRaWAN, Sigfox and others

The second family uses shared radio bands that any device may use if it follows the rules for the band. In the US, the relevant rules are the FCC’s Part 15, and section 15.247 covers operation in the 902 to 928 MHz band, among others. Nobody pays for the spectrum, but nobody has it to themselves either.

LoRaWAN is an open network protocol maintained by the LoRa Alliance, which says it operates in unlicensed radio frequency bands and supports bi-directional communication. Underneath is LoRa, a modulation that Semtech describes as derived from chirp spread spectrum: Semtech makes the LoRa silicon, and the LoRa Alliance manages the LoRaWAN standard. In the US, LoRa runs at 915 MHz, and region-specific rules apply; in the EU, for example, duty cycle rules cap how much air time a device may use. The LoRaWAN guide explains gateways, spreading factors and device classes.

Sigfox uses an Ultra Narrow Band radio interface, and RFC 8376 notes that both uplink and downlink are supported, although the system is optimized for uplink. Its devices run in ISM bands between 862 and 928 MHz depending on the region, according to the AWS whitepaper, and Sigfox’s own developer site names RC2 as the radio configuration for North America.

Two others are worth knowing by name:

• Wi-SUN FAN, the Wi-SUN Alliance’s Field Area Network profile, is aimed at smart city, smart grid and utility uses such as advanced metering. RFC 8376 describes it as a frequency-hopping wireless mesh with data rates from 50 to 300 kbit/s. It is the one mesh design in this list; the others send straight to a gateway or tower.
• mioty, developed at Fraunhofer IIS, splits each data packet into smaller sub-packets sent over different frequencies and time intervals, so a message can be rebuilt even if part of it is lost. Fraunhofer says its OMS LPWAN mode complies with the ETSI standard TS 103 357.

If a site needs more data than any of these but you still want to run the network yourself, Wi-Fi HaLow is the neighbor to look at: Wi-Fi below 1 GHz, with ordinary IP networking.

Who runs the network

This is often the deciding question, because it settles who you pay, who fixes outages and whether coverage is something you buy or build.

• A mobile operator, for NB-IoT and LTE-M. The towers, spectrum and core network are the operator’s. You pay per SIM, and coverage is whatever the operator has built for that technology.
• A public network provider, for LoRaWAN or Sigfox. In the AWS whitepaper’s terms, a public LoRaWAN network is operated by the provider and shared by several customers. Sigfox says its network is managed by local Sigfox Operators, who deploy the base stations in the field.
• You, with your own LoRaWAN gateways. The LoRa Alliance lists private, public, community and satellite networks as deployment options, and says LoRaWAN allows private deployments. You buy and mount the gateways, give them a backhaul connection, and run or rent a network server.

A private LoRaWAN network gives you coverage where you need it, on a farm or a campus you control, and no per-device fee to a carrier. In exchange, you own the uptime of the gateways and their internet links. An operator or public network removes that work but ties you to its coverage map, its pricing and its future. The next section shows why that last point matters.

Sigfox today

Sigfox, the French company that built the network of the same name, went into receivership and was sold in 2022. On April 21, 2022, the Commercial Court of Toulouse confirmed UnaBiz as the new owner of Sigfox SA, the technology company, and Sigfox France SAS, its network operator in France, in a deal reported at around 25 million euros. The same report said the US business had been placed into bankruptcy, and that all networks other than those in France and the US were owned and operated by third-party Sigfox operators.

Sigfox’s own site now describes the technology as an LPWA networking protocol owned by UnaBiz, under the name Sigfox 0G. Its coverage page, read on October 23, 2026, lists the countries with a 0G network operator, and the United States is not among them. For a US deployment, treat Sigfox as unavailable unless a provider can show you current coverage at your sites in writing.

If you rely on any public LPWAN network, ask the provider what happens to your devices if it stops operating in your area, and keep a fallback radio option in mind for new designs.

LPWAN technologies compared

The spectrum, data rate, payload and mobility rows come from the AWS whitepaper pages cited above. The roaming row for LoRaWAN comes from the LoRa Alliance, which lists roaming among public, private and community networks as a capability; for cellular, AWS lists carrier roaming agreements as a consideration to check, and the NB-IoT vs LTE-M guide explains why LTE-M has generally been the safer bet across borders.

Power saving: PSM and eDRX

NB-IoT and LTE-M both use two power saving features that let a cellular device sleep for long periods. The AWS NB-IoT page describes them this way:

• Power Saving Mode (PSM) puts the device into a deep sleep for up to 14 days. It stays registered on the network, so it does not have to go through the energy-costly reattach when it wakes, but the network cannot reach it while it sleeps.
• Extended Discontinuous Reception (eDRX) stretches the gap between the moments the device listens for the network. The network’s default is often about 10 seconds; with eDRX it can be extended up to about 175 minutes. RFC 8376 gives the NB-IoT idle-mode eDRX cycle as up to 3 hours, which agrees.

The trade is between battery and response time. AWS’s example is a street light with an eDRX interval of about 2.7 minutes: a command to turn it on can take up to 2.7 minutes to arrive. Support and upper limits for both features depend on the operator and the device, so confirm them with the carrier before you build a battery budget around them.

The shared-band technologies get the same effect in a simpler way: the device decides when to talk. A LoRaWAN Class A device sleeps until it has something to send, then listens briefly; AWS notes that long battery life is only possible for Class A and Class B devices. A Sigfox device listens for 30 seconds after each uplink. The guide to powering IoT sensors covers the rest of the battery budget.

How to choose an LPWAN for a use case

Start with four questions: does the device move, how much does it send and how often, does it need commands quickly, and who will run the network. Then check coverage at the real sites, because a coverage map cannot see inside a basement or a steel shed.

• Fields, orchards and barns on land you control. A private LoRaWAN network often fits: a gateway mounted high covers the site, the sensors send a few bytes a few times an hour, and there is no SIM fee per probe. Someone has to look after the gateway and its internet link.
• Trailers, pallets and vehicles that cross cells. LTE-M, because it supports handover between towers. NB-IoT and LoRaWAN can work for things that move between reports, but LTE-M is the one built for a device in motion.
• Meters and fixed sensors in buildings across a town. NB-IoT is designed for stationary devices that send little. A public LoRaWAN network is an alternative where one covers every site.
• A small business with a handful of sensors and no one to run a network. Cellular, or a public LoRaWAN service where it reaches your buildings. Building your own network for a few devices is rarely worth it.
• Anything that sends images, audio or frequent updates. Not LPWAN. Look at Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi HaLow or 5G RedCap.
• Sigfox in the US. Check current coverage first, for the reasons in the Sigfox section above.

Some cellular modules support both NB-IoT and LTE-M, which lets one hardware design choose per deployment. Whatever you pick, put a test device in the real location before ordering in volume.

For where LPWAN fits among the other layers a device uses, see the IoT protocols explainer. To go deeper, read LoRaWAN explained and NB-IoT vs LTE-M, or browse the rest of the connectivity guides.