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

Jeff-UK
Thu, 22 Jan 2026 12:17:50 +0000

Again, everything you say has been said before, with the same reasoning as someone new you can be forgiven for that - there is a lot of history here and it takes a long time to go back through all the historic posts and discussions (and yes, many were in private discussions so not all discoverable by search). All valid in their own context but ultimately feels like waves breaking on the shores of real life implementations. As I stated I would also potentially benefit but having been around for a few years now and having lived LoRa/LoRaWAN/TTN for a while I see the challenges and can understand the reasons why not.

One point I would highlight is

lclora:

helping them with their commercial contracts

The reality here is if used for commercial contracts then usually the clients will be looking for assurances, SLA’s and support (even if RF based hence cannot be guaranteed for inital link due to uncontrolled 3rd party or self inflicted transmissions, interference etc.) - something that is not offered with TTS Sandbox, so whilst the practical reality is that peering with TTN allows private instances and networks some additional coverage and redundancy this is not to be relied on. e.g. Where I am based in the UK’s Thames Valley west of London many of my GW’s and devices are fortunate to benefit from a benevolent private network south of the Thames (and others in the wider area) which peers with TTN and often captures and forwards data from devices to me, and similarly I see many of my GW’s in the area capturing the private network traffic and reciprocating. I’ve got a couple of GW’s that are down at the moment - network issues and switch off of 3G celluar in the area - but I dont need to rush to sort as the private network(s) and other community GW’s provide enough back up - though with ADR using slightly higher SF short term until my GW’s back online. The Community devices dont need an SLA and can live with occational lost packets. TL:DR no fully commercial network would/should rely on availability of community GW’s!

WRT alternate LoRaWAN instances one other little piece of practical advise I would offer is whilst ISM band licencing allows for much higher TX rates the reality (again) is that you may want to reevaluate if LoRaWAN is the right technology for any given application if you must push the limits. Remember as a Long Range technology this has impact to many others far and wide. I recommend collaborators, users and yes, commmercial clients, think hard about how resiliant their end aplication is - can it provide effective utility if there is significant packet loss? (On average I see <2% loss/missed messages across my various deployments; but recommendation is plan for how app will behave with upto e.g. 10% loss!) Also does it ‘really’ need 5 min or 30min or even hourly updates, is a longer TX duty cycle appropriate? Can data be packed in a way that longer TX cycles allow packing of intervening actual sensor measurements etc. Remember the RF spectrum is a precious resource and one that is shared……just because you can bang away at say 1% DC does not mean you should/have to! Think what would would happen if every user decided to work at the legal limit for every use case and every device - the airwaves would quickly become unusable So I often advise that rather than FUP being a limit or restriction in many cases it is really a guide to good practice and many of the private network deployments I have supported over the years have stuck with the same limit or possibly increased very slightly where the use case has demanded it…… just my 2 penneth! (Note the downlink limit is particularly good to adhear to as these are GW killers limiting the ability of uplinks to be heard and should be constrained where possible - dont think 10x per day but 10x per fortnight, or per month or (in case of static deployments!) even 10x across deployed (battery limited?) life

Finaly whilst

lclora:

wouldn’t devices having a local gateway just turn down their transmit power, so those more distant gateways stop receiving the signal

Is also a valid point; on a practical level it often doesnt happen in that way. Firstly, the deployed device has to be well programmed and managed to effect that benefit and many - even commercial devices - do not show that full behaviour, not least as secondly ADR doesnt immediately work that way (depending on network configuration and rules). Typically adjusting SF is used to effect good link quality at a distance under ADR so the idea is a good link initially at say SF10 will be commanded to move to say SF9 or SF8 or…. the benefit being reduced device power consumption through reduced time on air and also a consequent lower network congestion and reduced message clashes hence improvement for all c/w say staying at SF10 and just reducing Tx power to effect the same link budget. Only once down to SF7 does the idea of reducing Tx power levels come in to play, and by that time you are (in the context of LoRaWAN) already starting to consider the link as being relatively short range - possibly only a few hundred meters in a dense urban environment (vs >many 10’s km in open environments) and possibly less than that depending on construction techniques in the local environment. When getting very close in range it is often the case that swapping to a less efficient, lower cost antenna has significant benefit. Change out a $3-6 2.1/3dBi antenna to a cheap <$1 patch ant @ say -0.3/0.5dBito –1/-3dBi patch saves money and reduces long range interference and often gives a smaller device….horses for courses as they say. A lot of these alternate way of thinking and approaching only come with time and lived or shared (hence the Community and the Forum! ) experiences.

Good luck with your GW deployment…..and welcome to the Network!