Low-Power Wide-Area Networks: Comparison of LoRaWAN and NB-IoT Performance

Low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) have become an important enabler for the Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity. Application domains, such as smart cities, smart agriculture, intelligent logistics, and transportation, require communication technologies that combine long transmission ranges and energy efficiency. Recent and future trends make the long-range wide-area network (LoRaWAN) and narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) the most prospective drivers of the IoT business. In this article, after discussing the main features of the two technologies, we carry out a fair quantitative comparison between the two, investigating different performance indicators, in order to guide designers in the selection of the most appropriate technology, depending on the application requirements.