Fair usage with own gateway, why not offer a more generous fair usage plan?

descartes
Thu, 22 Jan 2026 14:17:14 +0000

The bit that TTI funds for us isn’t the gateway or the backhaul, it’s the servers which do all the heavy lifting with decryption, deduplication, decoding and forwarding.

Of all the metrics, 30 seconds covers a multitude of use cases for payload size - probably not totally scientific, but easy to measure on device and via console.

So as outlined above, adding a gateway actually has the potential to increase the workload of the servers if it has significant overlap with other gateways.

And if you are the lone wolf gateway in an area, maybe you should be penalised until you have two to provide some redundancy. And when you hit three, you get a bonus. But then penalised when you hit four.

Most people with a few devices host their own gateways anyway to provide resilience to their own setup. Those that start out with devices who like to fiddle but are relying on the community network usually end up with a gateway to help with debugging.

If your device burns through all the 30 seconds a day, you are probably doing it wrong - sending to frequently, too large or too far away or any combination thereof. So if you hitting the limit, check back here for advice on rightsizing.