The LoRa Alliance, the technical and marketing group promoting the LoRaWAN protocol for wide-area network (WAN) communications, is looking at ways to tweak the LoRaWAN specification for Amazon, so the retail and cloud giant switches its Sidewalk wireless networking platform from a proprietary version of LoRa to LoRaWAN.
A new working group, called LoRaWAN-Versus-Proprietary, has been established inside the LoRa Alliance to address certain shortcomings in the LoRaWAN specification to make it workable for Amazon, which selected a proprietary version of LoRa over LoRaWAN for Sidewalk in September.
At the time, Camarillo-based Semtech, which owns the non-cellular LoRa technology, hailed LoRa’s move into the consumer space, having established itself in proprietary setups and as the root technology in LoRaWAN for low-power industrial IoT connectivity.
The deal with Amazon, to underpin its new Sidewalk platform, running in 900 MHz spectrum, is a feather in the cap for the firm, and a driver potentially for considerable volumes in the smart-home market. At the same time, the announcement has shaken the LoRaWAN community, which has established a vibrant ecosystem.
Source: https://enterpriseiotinsights.com/20201208/channels/news/lora-alliance-semtech-in-talks-with-amazon-to-switch-sidewalk-over-to-lorawan
