Usability of LoRaWAN technology in a central business district

LoRaWAN is a relatively recent Low-Power Wide Area Network specification intended to support wireless battery operated devices for low data rate applications such as infrastructure monitoring, transportation, asset tracking, security, and health care. While it is clear that heavily built- up areas such as the Central Business District (CBD) of typical cities offer the greatest density of potential applications, the operation of its physical RF protocol, LoRa, has not been comprehensively studied in these environments. This paper presents a preliminary set of measurements evaluating the performance of LoRa in a high-density urban area (Melbourne's CBD). Our results shows that loss-free communication is assured only within a radius of approximately 200 meters from the base station and total loss of transmission occurs at around 600 meters.