NB-IoT and LoRaWAN Performance Testing in Urban and Rural Environment

With technology advancements and the prices of electronic components reducing over the last fifteen years, many devices and systems that would have been proprietary only for large companies or industry giants are becoming an everyday household item. Various areas of technology have been benefiting from this but one of the biggest is the Internet of Things (IoT).With the prevalence of IoT, it has been integrated into houses, small businesses, farms, agriculture, building automation, etc. and the user population is now a resource to the industry as they complete personal projects. Within any project there are always limitations, this might be a limited time, limited funds, limited distance, or limitations of the devices being used. This study proposes to evaluate two low-powered networks, Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT)and Long-Range Wide-Area Network(LoRaWAN), in different environments with the goal of understanding where the signal propagation is better and what distances can be reached despite obstructions. Distances and signal propagations, when measured by the manufacturers are often evaluated in ideal conditions which is rarely the case when utilized in the field. This creates a gap in the deployment and the end-users are frequently faced with diminished performances. As IoT is predominantly employed in urban and rural areas this study will focus on those two settings by testing the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI)at various distances. The evaluation testing of the two systems showed each system performing more consistently in rural areas but neither had 100% coverage at any locations.