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MAY/JUNE 2016 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | 49 is consolidated, processed and translated into intelligent information on which people can act. Antwerp has such a network, and so do plenty of U.S. towns and cities. Te main question is this: How can thousands of sensors fexibly be connected with this broadband network? To answer it, a number of wireless technologies come into play – including long range, low power (LoRa) network technology. LoRa was designed to connect sensors and other devices to the internet, as existing wireless network technologies present a number of drawbacks. Wi-Fi, for instance, has a limited coverage range (typically a few tens of meters), and 3G/4G/5G technologies are often too expensive, perform inefciently with sensors because they are designed for more complex devices, and drain sensors' batteries. LoRa tackles each of those issues. It is a communications technology for devices that occasionally transmit limited amounts of information; beyond that, it is energy efcient and cost-efective. INVESTIGATING LORA TECHNOLOGY "As we are an academic research center, we want to make Antwerp City of Tings a unique laboratory to test, evaluate and optimize diferent communications technologies in a real IoT environment," explains Bart Braem of iMinds – University of Antwerp, the technical research lead for the project. "Tat is why the gateways we are rolling out across the city to communicate with all sensors and connected devices support a variety of technologies – including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LoRa. At this point in time, we actually choose not to choose a technology yet. Tat being said, we are highly interested in LoRa, as it comes with a number of important advantages. First of all, it is an unlicensed mobile technology, which means that basically everyone, or every city, big or small, can roll out their LoRa network, very much like the cities that have been deploying their own fber networks. Moreover, once the LoRa network has been installed, costs are limited to maintenance. Tat means interested parties can deploy their own dedicated cellular networks for IoT at a very low cost." THINKING OUTSIDE THE BROADBAND BOX Both the researchers and the city of Antwerp have high expectations of the City of Tings initiative. It will not only provide researchers and entrepreneurs with the opportunity to develop and test new technologies, applications and business models but also transform Antwerp into a true smart city in which sensors and connected devices will help people make better-informed decisions – thus raising city life to a totally new level. "Antwerp is not the only Belgian city where this is ongoing," says Professor Steven Latré (iMinds – University of Antwerp). "In densely populated regions – but also in bigger buildings – rolling out a LoRa network and connecting it to the broadband infrastructure is a perfect start to turning broadband communities into smart communities – communities that are thus better equipped to diferentiate themselves from other cities or regions. In the end, it is just a matter of thinking outside the broadband box." v Wim Van Daele is external communication manager for iMinds, the digital research and incubation center of Flanders, Belgium, whose 900-plus researchers at fve Flemish universities conduct strategic and applied research in ICT, media and health. Learn more at www.iminds.be or contact Wim at wim.van.daele@ iminds.be. Antwerp City of Things uses sensors to measure air quality and trafc in real time and uploads the data into the cloud for analysis. The city's fber infrastructure makes these applications possible.