medium LoRaWAN exam questions
LoRaWAN Knowledge mock exam questions selected at medium level. Ideal for consolidating what you've learned and gauging your real level.
Medium level questions
Q01
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.TrueFalse1. Architecture· LoRa vs LoRaWAN· MediumCorrect answerTrueLearning tipLoRa and LoRaWAN sit at different layers of the stack. LoRa is the Semtech-owned physical-layer technology based on Chirp Spread Spectrum modulation (the silicon-level IP is licensed only by Semtech and a handful of partners). LoRaWAN is the open MAC-layer protocol plus end-to-end network architecture defined by the LoRa Alliance. A useful analogy: LoRa is to LoRaWAN what raw Ethernet wiring is to TCP/IP — devices can use LoRa without LoRaWAN through proprietary protocols, but the standardised, interoperable ecosystem is LoRaWAN.
Q02
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.TrueFalse1. Architecture· Star-of-Stars-Topologie· MediumCorrect answerTrueLearning tipEach end device broadcasts its uplink without targeting any particular gateway. The Network Server then receives N copies through the N gateways that heard the frame, keeps the best one (typically the strongest RSSI/SNR) for downlink scheduling and drops the duplicates. The main benefit is intrinsic gateway redundancy and robustness, since adding a gateway only improves coverage without any device-side reconfiguration. The trade-off compared with mesh stacks like Thread, Zigbee or Z-Wave is that LoRaWAN end devices cannot communicate directly with each other — every message has to go up through the infrastructure.
Q03
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).TrueFalse6. Network providers· Öffentliche Betreiber· MediumCorrect answerTrueLearning tipOrange Live Objects is the French market leader with around 10 000 gateways covering most of the country. Objenious, operated by Bouygues Telecom, was officially placed in end-of-life during 2024-2025. Helium Network is a community-incentivised network built on a token model, with around 3 000 hotspots in France. The Things Network (TTN) is an open community network with sparse French coverage. Private networks — for smart cities, industrial sites and agriculture — represent the majority of installed gateways, often outweighing the public operator footprint.
Q04
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.TrueFalse6. Network providers· Öffentlich vs. Privat· MediumCorrect answerTrueLearning tipPublic networks remove the need to invest in gateways and offer immediate coverage, but they bill per device on a SaaS basis (typically EUR 1-5 per device per year) and the SLA is rarely meaningful. Private networks give full control over coverage, performance and security, with a guaranteed SLA — at the cost of gateway hardware (roughly EUR 500 per gateway, with 10-20 gateways for an average smart-city deployment) and operational responsibility for the Network Server. A common hybrid approach combines private gateways on the customer site with roaming onto a public network for mobility — particularly useful for fleet asset tracking that leaves the campus.
Q05
Typical LoRaWAN smart-city use cases include: smart water meters, parking-bay occupancy sensors, fill-level sensors for waste bins, public-lighting telemonitoring, air-quality stations, EV charger monitoring (status and energy readings — not the OCPP charge-control protocol) and flood alerts — a typical LoRaWAN sensor costs between EUR 30 and EUR 150.TrueFalse7. Use cases· Smart City· MediumCorrect answerTrueLearning tipRepresentative price ranges for smart-city LoRaWAN devices: water meters (Veolia, Suez) at EUR 30-50 per unit; parking sensors (Smart Parking, Vinci Park) at EUR 80-150 per bay; waste-bin level sensors at EUR 50-100 per bin; public lighting often combined with D4i for monitoring and dimming; atmospheric-pollution stations at EUR 200-500 per station. Cities such as Paris, Lyon, Nantes and Bordeaux have significant LoRaWAN deployments across several of these verticals.
Q06
In building retrofits, LoRaWAN competes with EnOcean for energy sub-metering and wireless monitoring (temperature, CO2, presence): long range (one gateway covers a large building), 5-10 years of battery life on the sensors, but higher latency (Class A).TrueFalse7. Use cases· Gebäudemonitoring· MediumCorrect answerTrueLearning tipLoRaWAN typically reaches 500 m to 1 km indoors (so a single gateway can cover an entire large building), with a latency that effectively equals the uplink period — usually minutes for a Class A device. EnOcean only reaches 30-50 m indoors and therefore needs many gateways, but it offers second-level latency for instantaneous control. LoRaWAN is therefore preferred for monitoring use cases: retrofit sub-metering (10-100 meters per gateway), tertiary-sector monitoring for regulatory reporting (in France, the OPERAT platform under the Décret Tertiaire) and warehouse or factory logistics. EnOcean remains the better choice for instantaneous control (push-buttons, lighting commands).
Q07
The Things Network (TTN) is a free community LoRaWAN platform (community gateways plus a hosted Network Server) widely used for development, prototyping and maker-friendly deployments, with a web console and MQTT/HTTP SDKs for application integration.TrueFalse10. Tools· The Things Network· MediumCorrect answerTrueLearning tipThe TTN community runs approximately 25 000 gateways worldwide, of which around 500 are in France. The hosted Network Server is free under a fair-use policy (roughly 30 messages per device per day). The web console handles application and device registration, monitoring and payload decoders. Integrations include MQTT for event subscription and HTTP webhooks for pushing data into custom backends. Typical TTN usage covers prototypes, makers, research projects and small-scale deployments; The Things Industries (TTI), the commercial company behind TTN, offers paid plans for production workloads.
Q08
ChirpStack is the most popular open-source LoRaWAN Network Server and Application Server (MIT licence) for private deployments, supporting LoRaWAN 1.0.x and 1.1, multi-tenant operation and a web UI plus gRPC/REST APIs.TrueFalse10. Tools· ChirpStack· MediumCorrect answerTrueLearning tipThe ChirpStack stack includes a Network Server (deduplication, ADR, MAC-command handling, security), an Application Server (payload decoding, MQTT and HTTP integrations) and a web UI for managing gateways, devices and applications. It is multi-tenant — organisations are properly isolated — and can be self-hosted on Docker, Kubernetes or a plain Linux VM. It is the de-facto standard for private LoRaWAN networks. Notable alternatives include the commercial Loriot Server and the older LoRaServer project (now deprecated and superseded by ChirpStack itself).