2nd Meeting of the LoRa Interest Group at Stadtwerke München

On November 28, 2017, representatives of several municipal utilities and supply companies met for the second time as part of the so-called LoRa Interest Group, to exchange views on all matters related to LoRaWAN. The host of the all-day event was Stadtwerke München GmbH. At the first meeting in the summer at SmartMakers in Karlsruhe, the focus was on the basics of LoRaWAN technology and possible business models with LPWAN. These contents were complemented by a visit to the Gateways installed by Stadtwerke Karlsruhe in the Karlsruhe district of Grötzingen. This time, the concrete exchange of experiences on existing LoRaWAN installations of the participating institutions was the focus. Especially Stadtwerke München, the Technischen Werke Ludwigshafen and WiTCOM from Wiesbaden presented their current development, expansion, and usage strategies, use cases, and insightful test series. All three utilities now operate their own LoRaWAN networks and can draw on a large pool of experience.

SmartMakers take on an informative, moderating, and organizing role in this round. In this context, Sebastian Stute and Reimo Schaupp reported on the topics of LoRaWAN range, ModBus adapter and a Wireless M-Bus bridge for LoRaWAN installations, scalability of a LoRaWAN, and the most important innovations of the update of the LoRaWAN standard to version 1.1. The most difficult part of such rounds is finding a date. Therefore, planning for the next event was initiated directly in the final program item.