en.Wedoany.com Reported - The LoRa Alliance announced that the global installed base of LoRaWAN-based IoT devices has reached 125 million units, growing at a rate of 25 million per year. This figure remains modest compared to Vodafone alone, which has 240 million IoT connections. However, Alliance CEO Alper Yegin argues that this comparison misses the point: LoRaWAN's growth is driven by rapidly expanding private networks, deeper industrial integration, and a core role in the "physical AI" economy.
Yegin stated that Vodafone's 240 million connections primarily come from higher-margin markets such as connected cars, ATMs, point-of-sale devices, and home security backup lines, where LoRaWAN does not directly compete. LoRaWAN plays a complementary role in low-power, low-cost, and hard-to-reach applications. Major operators including Swisscom, Orange, Verizon, and AT&T are adopting both technologies simultaneously. The Alliance noted that private networks deployed by enterprises are expanding faster than public operator networks, thanks to specialized solution providers in areas like agriculture and campus security. The Alliance has released a new three-year roadmap aimed at accelerating technology adoption through enhanced industrial integration, plug-and-play deployment improvements, and expanded satellite and roaming capabilities.
On the technical front, the Alliance's core efforts include collaborating with the OPC Foundation to define specifications for OPC UA running on LoRaWAN to enable integration with legacy industrial systems; in the water and electricity meter sectors, integration is achieved through DLMS and OMS protocols. The Alliance is working with the IETF to adapt IPv6 for LoRaWAN and will also integrate with the U.S. water meter protocol UI-1203. Additionally, the Alliance is focused on achieving "zero-touch" onboarding, device migration, and other plug-and-play improvements, while expanding satellite connectivity and roaming capabilities to broaden coverage. Satellite network partners include Lacuna, Plan-S, Kinéis, and Fossa Systems. Regarding community networks, Yegin confirmed that Helium's consumer MVNO business has been sold to U.S.-based Noble Mobile, but its core LoRaWAN infrastructure and HNT ecosystem remain with Nova Labs.
Yegin believes that AI is a significant catalyst for IoT. The so-called "physical AI" is essentially IoT: connecting sensors, devices, and machines to AI systems that understand and act upon the physical world. Combined with LoRaWAN's open ecosystem, low-cost infrastructure, and broad application range, AI will drive the next phase of growth for the technology and the IoT market. He mentioned that vibration and camera sensors from companies such as Advantech, Honeywell, Milesight, NKE Watteco, and TE Connectivity are already processing data at the device edge, while the Alliance community is leveraging AI to optimize data flows and enhance application value.
Yegin emphasized that LoRaWAN's advantage over other unlicensed spectrum technologies lies in its mature developer ecosystem and critical mass. The Alliance established a four-wave deployment strategy from the outset: public networks, enterprise private networks, community networks (such as TTN and Helium), and satellite networks—all four waves are now in play. Among these, private networks have the fastest growth momentum, with a wide range of applications and high ecosystem agility. He cited examples such as New Zealand agritech company Halter and North American emergency button provider CENTEGIX, which are rapidly scaling their commercial applications via LoRaWAN. Yegin believes that technology development takes time, and the AI narrative is accelerating market awareness and adoption of this technology.
