Knowledge base

A Mobile Network Operator (MNO) is a Telecommunications Service Provider that provides wireless voice and data communications to its subscribed mobile customers. MNOs are independent Telecommunications Service Providers that own the complete telecom infrastructure for hosting and managing mobile communications. MNO features An important feature of an MNO is that an MNO must own or manage access to a radio spectrum license from a regulatory or government agency. A second important feature of an MNO is that it must own or manage the elements of the network infrastructure necessary to provide services to subscribers over the licensed spectrum. M2M, LTE M and NB-IOT fall under the licensed spectrum.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the system and network protocol used on the Internet to translate computer names into numerical IP-addresses and vice versa. DNS is a client-server system: a requester uses the DNS protocol to request a name or address from a provider (DNS server), to which the server returns a reply. Looking up a number by a name is called forward lookup; looking up a name with a number reverse lookup.

UDP stands for User Datagram Protocol and it is one of the basic protocols of the Internet. This is a message-oriented protocol. This means that a sender sends a message to the receiver, just like with the TCP protocol. However, the difference with TCP is that with UDP the receiver does not send an confirmation to the sender. UDP can be compared to sending an email where you do not know whether the message will arrive and be read. The advantage of UDP is that it is faster than TCP. It's faster, because no confirmation is sent, so there is no two-way traffic. However, UDP also has drawbacks. Because no confirmation is sent at UPD, it is less reliable in sending data than, for example, TCP. This means that UDP is mainly suitable for one-way communication, where the loss of some data is not a problem. UDP is therefore mainly used when speed is more important than a 100% error-free connection. The UDP protocol is mainly used for live streaming and VOIP (voice over ip).

TCP is a network protocol, which is used for sending data bits (packets) over the internet, on top of the regular internet protocol (the transport layer/application layer in the IP stack). TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol and is a widely used protocol that transfers data on the Internet over network connections. TCP can send data in a data stream, which means that this data is guaranteed to arrive at its destination. Communication errors are also taken care of.

For some business cases, where the device mainly receives data from the IoT network and sends virtually no data, the time that the device listens to the network can be adjusted. This arrangement between the device and the network can be extended from every 10 seconds to once every few hours with Extended Discontinuous Reception (eDRX). It lowers battery consumption. The cellular modules can go into a deep, low-power sleep mode (PSM) or only become active (eDRX) when the cellular module needs to connect to the network to transmit data. This results in a significant battery saving. eDRX is available with LTE M and NB-IOT.

Using a Power Saving Mode (PSM) makes it so the cellular module in a device can be put to sleep. During that sleep time, the energy consumption is a few microamperes. The device will not communicate with the network during that time. If the device does want to send data, the cellular module will automatically come out of sleep mode and immediately send the desired data over the network. By arranging this sleeping time as optimally as possible, energy consumption is kept to a minimum. PSM is available with LTE M and NB-IOT.  

FQDN is an abbreviation of Fully Qualified Domain Name, and it stands for the most complete domain name for a specific website, computer or server on the Internet. It is also known as the absolute domain name. Where a domain name consists of a registered name plus a domain extension (top level domains), an FQDN is the full name including any subdomains such as “www” in the FQDN “www.thingsdata.nl”. In combination with a protocol such as HTTP(S) and a possible file location, an FQDN forms a URL. The IP address associated with an FQDN is looked up via the Domain Name System (DNS). For example, it is possible to set up a connection to a server on the basis of an FQDN.  

Mobile Terminating (MT) refers to a message that is sent to a device (hardware). The message is terminated on the device side.    

Mobile Originated (MO) refers to a message sent from a device (hardware). The message was originally sent from the device side.

Geolocation is the ability to determine the location of a LoRa sensor without using GPS. This is an add-on and does not have to be available on every LoRaWAN network. The LoRa sensor does not need to implement additional functionalities for this. The location of a sensor can already be determined when an uplink message is received by three or more LoRaWAN gateways. Geolocation how does it work? The LoRaWAN network is able to determine the position of a sensor by analyzing the times when an uplink message is received on the different gateways. A location can be derived by calculating the difference in reception times of the different gateways. To do this, special gateways are needed that support the geolocation functionality.

LPWAN stands for Low Power Wide Area Network. An LPWAN network meets the following criteria: it is a wireless network, which allows communication with the network with low energy consumption. The network has a large range (several kilometers) with a low bit rate. An LPWAN's main purpose is to collect information. Although it is often possible to send information in both directions. There are different types of networks that meet these criteria and thus fall under the name LPWAN, such as LoRaWAN, NB-IOT and LTE M.

LoRaWAN stands for Long-Range Wide-Area Network. LoRaWAN is very suitable for battery-powered mobile devices with the aim of providing an efficient way for bi-directional communication. LoRaWAN is divided into different parts, it consists of a LoRa sensor, a LoRaWAN gateway and a LoRaWAN network server. With LoRaWAN it is possible to send information in two directions. Information sent from the LoRa sensor is called an uplink message. Information from the network to the sensor is called a downlink message. LoRaWAN how does it work? LoRaWAN focuses on low power consumption while allowing information to be transmitted over long distances. The low energy consumption is achieved by accurately specifying when information can be exchanged. This makes it possible for a LoRa sensor to wake up only to send a message while the sensor is in an energy-efficient sleep mode the rest of the time. To save even more energy, the network is able to adjust settings of the sensor, the term for this is Adaptive Data Rate (ADR). This gives the network the ability to tune the sensor so that it does not transmit longer than is necessary for reliable communication.