Interview with Alper Yegin
Alper Yegin holds 16 patents and is the author of numerous technical standards and publications.
Alper Yegin is CEO of the LoRa Alliance, where he oversees the strategic direction of the organization and supports the development and global adoption of LoRaWAN technology, a key standard for low-power wide area networks (LPWANs) for the Internet of Things (IoT).
Prior to his role as CEO, he served as chair of the LoRa Alliance Technical Committee for eight years and as vice chair of the board for seven years.
Mr. Yegin has more than 25 years of experience in the IoT, mobile and wireless communications industries, having held senior positions including CTO at Actility and various positions at Samsung Electronics, DoCoMo and Sun Microsystems.
He has contributed to the development of global standards in organizations such as IETF, 3GPP, ETSI, Zigbee Alliance, WiMAX Forum and IPv6 Forum, where he has held leadership positions.
Alper Yegin is CEO of the LoRa Alliance, where he oversees the strategic direction of the organization and supports the development and global adoption of LoRaWAN technology, a key standard for low-power wide area networks (LPWANs) for the Internet of Things (IoT).
Prior to his role as CEO, he served as chair of the LoRa Alliance Technical Committee for eight years and as vice chair of the board for seven years.
Mr. Yegin has more than 25 years of experience in the IoT, mobile and wireless communications industries, having held senior positions including CTO at Actility and various positions at Samsung Electronics, DoCoMo and Sun Microsystems.
He has contributed to the development of global standards in organizations such as IETF, 3GPP, ETSI, Zigbee Alliance, WiMAX Forum and IPv6 Forum, where he has held leadership positions.
Alper Yegin holds 16 patents and is the author of numerous technical standards and publications.
1. What is the current state of LoRaWAN technology?
The LoRa Alliance was founded in 2015 and published the first official LoRaWAN specification as an open protocol for LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Networks). However, the underlying LoRa radio technology was developed earlier, in 2009.
Alper Yegin: LoRaWAN is a wireless communication technology tailored for massive IoT use cases, covering over 95 percent of IoT applications that don’t require real-time communication or large data transfers. With over 100 million devices deployed worldwide, it’s the top Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology outside of China.
LoRaWAN is relatively young compared to other technologies like Wi-Fi and GSM. For example, GSM has been around for nearly 40 years, while LoRaWAN has only been around for about ten. In that sense, we’re still in our early stages.
We don’t even consider ourselves to be in the first “G,” so to speak, compared to how 3GPP names their generations, like 5G. You could say we’re in our first generation without formally naming it yet, and despite its youth, the technology is already becoming incredibly impactful.
Alper Yegin: LoRaWAN is a wireless communication technology tailored for massive IoT use cases, covering over 95 percent of IoT applications that don’t require real-time communication or large data transfers. With over 100 million devices deployed worldwide, it’s the top Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology outside of China.
LoRaWAN is relatively young compared to other technologies like Wi-Fi and GSM. For example, GSM has been around for nearly 40 years, while LoRaWAN has only been around for about ten. In that sense, we’re still in our early stages.
We don’t even consider ourselves to be in the first “G,” so to speak, compared to how 3GPP names their generations, like 5G. You could say we’re in our first generation without formally naming it yet, and despite its youth, the technology is already becoming incredibly impactful.
The LoRa Alliance was founded in 2015 and published the first official LoRaWAN specification as an open protocol for LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Networks). However, the underlying LoRa radio technology was developed earlier, in 2009.
“There are numerous opportunities to highlight success stories, deployments, and the significant impact LoRaWAN has already made in the IoT space. With its strong foundation and rapid advancements, it’s on a great trajectory moving forward, providing transformative solutions across industries.”
Alper Yegin – CEO, LoRa Alliance
2. What are the new developments and future plans for LoRaWAN?
Alper Yegin: LoRaWAN continues to innovate across terrestrial and satellite connectivity. Today, three commercial providers offer satellite-based IoT services using LoRaWAN, positioning it as the most mature standards-based satellite IoT technology in the market. The following companies are involved: plan.space from Turkey, the Irish company EchoStar Mobile, and the British company Lacuna Space.
To enhance connectivity in ultra-deep indoor locations and in the most challenging environments, we are developing drive-by reading solutions to connect the final few percent of devices.
What’s exciting is that by supporting three types of networks – public, private, and community networks – we have enabled expanded collaborations and partnerships between networks. This mix and match in network collaboration is not possible with any other wireless technology.
Looking forward, we are also exploring partnerships that extend LoRaWAN’s capabilities beyond Earth, utilizing low Earth orbit satellites and geostationary satellite-based connectivity across Europe and North America.
Less than 20% of the Earth’s surface is covered by terrestrial networks. In remote areas and at sea, expansion remains challenging and economically unviable. Satellites are the best solution to meet the remaining connectivity needs.
3. What are the main advantages of LoRaWAN?
Alper Yegin: The core strengths of LoRaWAN technology lie in its long range, low power consumption, and cost-effectiveness. These attributes make it the go-to solution for massive IoT use cases such as smart agriculture, energy monitoring, and asset tracking.
Unlike cellular technologies that require expensive spectrum licenses, LoRaWAN operates on unlicensed bands, reducing costs. Its affordable network infrastructure also makes it accessible for both businesses and individuals.
A key feature of LoRaWAN is its exceptional range—up to 600 kilometers under line-of-sight conditions—ideal for satellite-based IoT applications. When used terrestrially, LoRaWAN can penetrate walls and other obstacles, which makes it ideal for applications like smart city and smart building deployments. Its low power consumption enables devices to operate autonomously for over a decade, which is transformative for utilities like water and gas metering.
4. Can you share some examples of LoRaWAN solutions?
Alper Yegin: Yes, of course. LoRaWAN is being used in a variety of impactful ways. For instance, in Africa, it helps track wildlife and monitor electric fences, reducing poaching activities. The Connected Conservation Foundation* has actively published reports showing how poaching activities have significantly decreased after LoRaWAN was deployed.
* The Connected Conservation Foundation (CCF) is committed to protecting wildlife and natural ecosystems, and strengthening community-led conservation through technology.
“When it comes to solving nature conservation problems, technology is our game changer, giving us the edge.”
Ian Craig – Executive Director, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy
In the United States, panic buttons utilizing LoRaWAN have been deployed in schools and hospitals, improving safety and enabling rapid emergency responses.
In facility management, LoRaWAN’s low-cost infrastructure supports smart building solutions. Zenner, for example, has deployed over nine million devices for energy monitoring and building management. Similarly, Tata Communications* has connected 360,000 streetlights under one project.
* Tata Communications Limited is an Indian telecommunications company headquartered in Mumbai, India.
LoRaWAN use cases stand out because they combine long range, low power consumption, scalability, and simple infrastructure. This enables cost-effective solutions for smart cities, agriculture, industry, logistics, and many other sectors that cannot be efficiently implemented with conventional wireless networks.
5. How does LoRaWAN compare to mioty?
Mioty is the latest entrant in the umbrella of LPWAN technologies, with a claim that it is solving a scalability issue with LoRaWAN. This is an unfounded claim. Today LoRaWAN is successfully deployed in most-demanding use cases: remote metering with millions of devices.
As the use cases get further demanding, several technical features are already available in our portfolio, including relay, low-cost indoor gateways, walk/drive-by reading, and last but not least, using LR-FHSS* modulation.
LR-FHSS is already used in networks that require highest-scalability: satellites serving a coverage of thousands of kilometers. Having proven the extreme scalability in space-based networks, using that on the terrestrial networks if and when needed is also within our offering.
* LR-FHSS (Long Range – Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) is a modulation technique designed to enhance LoRaWAN networks by improving their scalability, interference resistance and capacity, particularly in high-density or noisy environments.
“In short, MIOTY is claiming to be a solution to a problem that does not exist today, and where LoRa Alliance has a very deep stack of features to handle any future demand as well. All that, of course, even without mentioning the size and growth of LoRaWAN ecosystem all across the world.”
Alper Yegin – CEO, LoRa Alliance
