Frequently asked questions

What is the influence of buildings?

When a device sends a signal in a highly reflective environment, it will hardly ever reach the gateway directly. The signal will bounce from one or multiple buildings until it reaches the gateway. This will create a longer path, later fine timestamp and a lower accuracy.

If the device is mounted directly next to a window (with coating) or concrete material, reflection will negatively impact the accuracy of Geolocation.

Do I need a special device to make use of LoRa Geolocation?

In general, you do not need a special device. However, instead of just having a connection (one gateway) as with regular devices, messages need to be received by multiple gateways to perform the most effectively. So, to increase quality, special attention should be given to antenna design, signal direction and configuration of the device (concerning ADR, for example).

What is KPN’s focus for improvements concerning the Geolocation service?

For now, we see that static performance is most important for our customers, so we are improving both accuracy and stability (success rate) for static device profiles first. We also noticed that the “first time Geolocation accuracy” is relevant for our customers. We are constantly innovating our IoT services and, as we are the first operator in the world to offer nationwide LoRa Geolocation, we are still expecting many improvements of this service in the future.

What about indoor Geolocation?

There is quite some pull from the market for such services. Most of the time, solutions based on LoRa only are not sufficient for indoor Geolocation, but this does not mean that KPN is not able to help you. Please talk to our IoT team; we have quite some experience with devices that support multiple technologies (RF, Bluetooth, GPS) to answer your needs.

Which Spreading Factor (SF) should I use for Geolocation?

The best practice is to enable Adaptive Data Rate (ADR) on your device, so that the network can calculate the best Spreading Factor. In the field tests KPN has performed together with customers, it turned out that using SF12 does not always provide the best results, since using SF12 results in a bigger chance of collisions in the air.

How can I improve signal quality for Geolocation?

Make sure all aspects of the device are well-designed. Take, for instance, the antenna design. A good antenna design will give you a better range, which translates into a higher accuracy of the LoRa Geolocation service. Also make sure to review the entire solution design. The antenna and device might be of very good quality, for example, but the solution as a whole would still function poorly if it is fully encased with the wrong materials. For the test houses that can check your antenna design on radio performance, visit https://www.lora-alliance.org/certification-overview.