The LoRa Alliance, the global association of companies backing the open LoRaWAN standard for Internet of Things (IoT) low-power wide area networks (LPWANs), and Tencent Holdings Limited, a leading provider of internet value-added services in China, today announced that Tencent has joined the LoRa Alliance at the highest level, further accelerating the adoption of LoRaWAN technology. This news coincides with this week’s IOTE 2018 event in Shenzhen, where many LoRa Alliance members will showcase their LoRaWAN products and services.

“The number of relevant use cases for the IoT continues to grow with new applications in continuous development,” said Donna Moore, CEO and Chairwoman of the LoRa Alliance. “Projections for China’s IoT market are significant, and LoRaWAN is very well positioned in the LPWAN space. Having Tencent join the LoRa Alliance is very valuable for our ecosystem and strengthens our presence in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Tencent has invested significantly in technology and applications for LoRaWAN and will support further development of the LoRaWAN ecosystem. The company also announced plans to build a LoRaWAN network in Shenzhen with local partners. Finally, it provides device-edge-cloud LoRaWAN solutions on its network for a wide variety of IoT applications and end users, such as government public services.

Hongtao Bie, Vice President of Tencent Technologies, said: “It is clear that LPWANs are essential for the IoT technology and applications, and the market is quickly growing in China, especially in areas like government public services, industry manufacturing, personal IoT devices, etc.”

Huixing Wang, Vice President of Tencent Cloud, said: “LoRaWAN has seen rapid growth, and we feel it is highly complementary to NB-IoT in the LPWAN market. Joining the LoRa Alliance will allow us to influence LoRaWAN development, advance IoT adoption, and strengthen our cloud business by building close partnerships with other LoRaWAN vendors around the world.”

One of the main challenges for the IoT is that use cases vary greatly depending on the application, with different types of devices being connected that must interoperate. Security and reliability represent another challenge for application deployment. The LoRaWAN protocol offers flexibility in deployment models, proven bi-directional security, low cost and high efficiency, which has enabled the successful deployments of IoT solutions from device to cloud.

For those interested in learning more about the LoRa Alliance and LoRaWAN technology, please join Alliance members at IOTE 2018, taking place July 31 – August 2, 2018 at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center in Shenzhen, China. The following LoRa Alliance members will exhibit at this event:

• Advantech Co., Ltd.

• AISenz Inc.

• Beijing GTI IoT

• Beijing Sensoro Technology Co. Ltd.

• EasyLinkin Co., LTD.

• Emdoor

• Foxconn Global Network Corporation

• Fujitsu Component Limited

• Hangzhou Lowan Information Technology Co.

• Legeniot Co., Ltd.

• Murata

• RisingHF

• Ruijie Networks Co., Ltd

• Shenzhen Friendcom Technology Development Co., Ltd.

• Shenzhen Winext Technology Co., Ltd

• STMicroelectronics

• Tektelic

• Turbo Technologies Corporation

• Xiamen Four-Faith Communication Technology Co., Ltd.