A Cloud-based Virtual Network Operator for Managing Multimodal LPWA Networks and Devices

The Internet of Things (IoT) domain is characterized by many applications that require low bandwidth communication over a long range at a low cost and at low power, which has given rise to novel Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies that operate in the sub-GHz domain. Today, these technologies are being adopted in more complex settings and configurations than originally intended. Devices are being equipped with multiple LPWAN radio technologies to satisfy more diverse requirements, connecting to different networks at different times and locations. Further, organizations can have devices with different LPWAN technologies in the field or existing infrastructure might be shared across different organizations. As a consequence, there arises an increasing complexity in managing such multimodal LPWANs and in designing IoT applications on top. We present and validate the concept of a cloud-based virtual LPWA network operator that unifies such multimodal communications and homogenizes the way such heterogeneous private LPWAN deployments are managed by means of distributed OMA Lightweight M2M (LwM2M) containers. In addition, our architecture provides support for the most recent efforts in adopting IPv6 for LPWAN communication.