IoT – Page 2 – Software / Wetware

The end of 3G for IoT(10 min read)

3G (3rd generation mobile technology) networks for the major telecommunication companies are due to shut down over the next few years. This includes Telstra, whose network is now in the sunset phase and due to close in June 2024.

This will mean the end of 3G for Internet of Things deployments, and they will need to migrate to either LPWAN (Low-Power, Wide-Area Networks) or new generation cellular mobile, depending on the use case.

As pointed out in this article on Why you need to migrate your devices now! that does not give a lot of time. If you have 15,000 devices in the field you need to be replacing 30 devices per day — if you start tomorrow; more if you take long to commence your project.

The are three main options for migration, in two categories:

LPWAN
- NB-IoT (Narrow-Band Internet-of-Things)
- Cat-M1 (Category M1), also known as LTE-M (Long Term Evolution, Category M)
Cellular Mobile
- 4G LTE (4th Generation) mobile

This post will explore those options in a bit more detail, as well as what other alternatives there might be. 5G NR (5th Generation New Radio) does not yet have wide enough coverage to be a viable option for IoT in most cases.

If this seems a bit overwhelming, given the short time frames and what you need to do, then you can also approach our consulting services, Telstra Purple, for advice and help.

Unboxing the Dragino LPS8 LoRaWAN gateway(8 min read)

I recently got a Dragino LPS8 LoRaWAN gateway and set it up on my network. The LPS stands for LoRaWAN Pico Station.

The open source gateway runs a variant of OpenWRT and the latest version supports a range of LoRaWAN features including Basic Station. You can use it for a private network or set it up with a community as I did for The Things Network (TTN).

Unboxing the Dragino LPS8 LoRaWAN gateway

Read on for details of how easy it was to set it up securely.

Code First Azure Digital Twins — a first look(6 min read)

Telstra has a large Internet of Things portfolio, with Digital Twins one of the focus areas for Telstra Purple professional services. All major providers are supported, including Azure Digital Twins.

The team recently took some core bits out of project they are working on with code first Azure Digital Twins and have released it as an open source library, so I thought I would share an initial look at the project.

Why code first? Using a code first approach can make accessing Digital Twins easier for developers. They can use their native programming language and tools to develop their models, without having to learn the intricacies of DTDL (Digital Twins Definition Language) or the REST APIs for interacting with Azure Digital Twins.

The library can be found at https://github.com/telstra/DigitalTwins-CodeFirst-dotnet