Discussion about The Things Network : Building a fully distributed internet of things data infrastructure in France

The Things Network is building a network for the Internet of Things by creating abundant data connectivity, so applications and businesses can flourish.
The technology we use is called LoRaWAN and it allows for things to talk to the internet without 3G or WiFi. So no WiFi codes and no mobile subscriptions.
It features low battery usage, long range and low bandwidth. Perfect for the internet of things.

What’s that ? How does it works ? See https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/

This is the general thread for discussing the project; the thread is also visible on its page at https://www.fablabs.io/projects/the-things-network-building-a-fully-distributed-internet-of-things-data-infrastructure-in-france

And even better, TTN is based mostly on open technology. There is a teenie weenie patent and some trademarks owned by Semtech on the silicon implementing the LoRa RF modulation scheme. But they exercise a relaxed ownership of it and license it under conditions to hardware manufacturers so that the radio chips are cheap enough to let few care, yet.
The network protocol, LoRaWAN, however is an open standard protocol developed by an industry group.

I’ve written something about the openness here (beware, Google Translated from Danish).

Even greater thing, there are open hardware LoRaWAN gateways out there;

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