Title: On LoRaWAN Scalability: Empirical Evaluation of Susceptibility to Inter-Network Interference,
Abstract: Appearing on the stage quite recently, the Low Power Wide Area Networks
(LPWANs) are currently getting much of attention. In the current paper we study
the susceptibility of one LPWAN technology, namely LoRaWAN, to the
inter-network interferences. By means of excessive empirical measurements
employing the certified commercial transceivers, we characterize the effect of
modulation coding schemes (known for LoRaWAN as data rates (DRs)) of a
transmitter and an interferer on probability of successful packet delivery
while operating in EU 868 MHz band. We show that in reality the transmissions
with different DRs in the same frequency channel can negatively affect each
other and that the high DRs are influenced by interferences more severely than
the low ones. Also, we show that the LoRa-modulated DRs are affected by the
interferences much less than the FSK-modulated one. Importantly, the presented
results provide insight into the network-level operation of the LoRa LPWAN
technology in general, and its scalability potential in particular. The results
can also be used as a reference for simulations and analyses or for defining
the communication parameters for real-life applications.