400M Indians, 50M French Going LoRa. Is LTE Obsolete for IOT

Lamarr really was an inventor of spread spectrumPromised: 10 year battery life;, very low power; 15 km reach; 50-meter ground penetration; not stopped by seven walls; doesn't need a spectrum allocation. It's also darned cheap. The performance is a dismal 0.3 kbps to 50 kbps but it still sounds impossible. 

Little chipmaker Semtech seemed to be tilting at windmills until Bouygues turned on Grenoble and Paris. Bouygues plans 20 cities in France by the end of this year. France Telecom responded they will cover "the entire nation" by the end of next year. Now Tata, a $100B conglomerate, announced they will serve 400M people in India's cities. Swisscom and KPN have announcements.

IoT Briefs

Lots to report but only briefs for now. Sorry. Dave

400M Indians, 50M French set for LoRa. 

Tata doing India, France Telecom and Bouygues France.
Uses Hedy Lamarr's invention, Spread Spectrum.
Promises lowest power, lomgest reach and lowest cost.
Six others make same claim.

Intel's Roadmap for LTE to get slower! Much reduced power for IoT. From Rick Merritt, EE Times

 Live in San Francisco: 30 SIGFOX Nodes

Promises 10 more U.S. cities soon; 4000 nodes including W. Europe within a year. San Francisco offered SIGFOX access to city buildings including libraries. It already "covers" France, neighboring countries and London. Based in  Labège, France. In Europe, they use the narrow 868MHz band and in the U.S. 902 MHz. Like several competitors, it claims long reach and low cost.