Abstract
Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs) are emerging as appealing solutions for several Internet of Things (IoT) applications, such as healthcare, smart cities and Industry 4.0, thanks to their ease of deployment, low energy consumption and large coverage range. LoRaWAN is one of the most successful LPWAN standards, as it supports robust long-distance communications using low-cost devices. To comply with the ETSI regulations, LoRaWAN can adopt as medium access control (MAC) layer either a pure ALOHA approach with duty-cycle limitations or a polite spectrum access technique, such as Listen Before Talk (LBT). The two approaches have their pros and cons that need to be carefully evaluated. The studies in the literature that so far have addressed an evaluation of MAC protocols for LoRaWAN refer to a previous and now obsolete version of the ETSI regulations, therefore they do not take into account the current limits on the timing parameters for polite spectrum access, such as that maximum time an end-node is allowed to be transmitting per hour. For this reason, the contribution of this work is two-fold. First, the paper discusses the restrictions that the current ETSI regulations impose on some timing parameters of the two kinds of MAC protocols for LoRaWAN. Second, the paper provides comparative performance assessments of the two protocols through simulations in realistic scenarios under different workload conditions.
Highlights
The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm is presently successfully applied to a broad set of scenarios with very heterogeneous requirements, such as smart cities, healthcare, and smart environments [1]
The limitations imposed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) regulation on the use of Listen Before Talk (LBT)-based medium access schemes are reported in Table 2 [21]
LBT medium access schemes when used in a Long-Range Wide-Area Network (LoRaWAN) network in compliance with the current
Summary
The IoT paradigm is presently successfully applied to a broad set of scenarios with very heterogeneous requirements, such as smart cities, healthcare, and smart environments [1]. Long-Range (LoRa) technology and can adopt two different uncoordinated channel access methods [20], i.e., an ALOHA-based approach and a polite spectrum access strategy based on the Listen Before Talk (LBT) technique, i.e., on carrier sensing.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
