LoRaWAN

An important distinction must be made: "LoRa" is the physical-layer radio modulation (CSS, Chirp Spread Spectrum, proprietary to Semtech), whereas "LoRaWAN" is the MAC-layer protocol and network architecture (an open standard from the LoRa Alliance) built on top of LoRa.

The LoRa Alliance is the non-profit organisation that maintains the LoRaWAN standard (public specification, product certification programme and operator programme), with more than 500 members worldwide, including the major silicon vendors, public operators and device makers.

LoRaWAN uses a "star-of-stars" topology: each end device transmits unidirectionally toward ALL in-range gateways, the gateways forward the packet to the Network Server, which deduplicates the copies; there is no mesh between end devices.

As of 2026, the main public LoRaWAN operators in France are: Orange Live Objects (near-nationwide coverage), Bouygues Objenious (in sunset), Helium Network (community-driven) and Loriot (Swiss-based commercial Network Server vendor, not a public carrier). In addition, many deployments are run on private networks (dedicated infrastructure).

For critical IoT deployments (smart city, industrial sites, fleet asset tracking), private LoRaWAN networks are often preferred over public operators: full infrastructure control, contractual SLA, stronger security and no commercial dependency on a third-party operator.