Weightless-P vs. LoRaWAN vs. Sigfox
Adaptive Data Rate
Adaptive Data Rate adjusts the actual data rate (625bps-100kbps) depending on the each node's proximity to base station. Nodes close to the base station will utilise a higher data rate resulting in a shorter time on-air and a lower output power. Contrarily, nodes that are furthest away from the base station utilise the lowest data rate and highest output power. This method ensures optimal network performance and maximises battery life of end devices.
Efficient TDMA / FDMA)
Organised, synchronous networking means every device and base station knows exactly when to talk and when to listen. This is identical to our reliable cellular networks that our cell phones depend on. Without it, high collision rates will occur. Time division multiple access (TDMA) is a channel access method for shared medium networks. It allows several users to share the same frequency channel by dividing the signal into different time slots. FDMA is another channel access method giving users an individual allocation of one or several frequency bands and coordinates access between multiple users. LoRaWAN and Sigfox are NOT synchronous networks.
Years of Battery Life
depends on Reliable Networking
End device battery life depends heavily on various elements like the size of your battery and the use-case but certain power saving features separate Weightless-P from the rest of the LPWAN competition.
As the sub-GHz unlicensed bands steadily gains traffichigher chances of interference, packet collisions, and packets lost will occur. The primitive workaround to this issue is to re-send messages numerous times until the message is delivered successfully (LoRa/Sigfox); this method will quickly exhaust a battery. Weightless was built with the same reliability features as our cellular networks: a powerful, synchronous network provides the highest probability your data is delivered successfully in one attempt.
Read more about the reliability features of Weightless here