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Connectivity explained

Five radios, one question: what's the difference?

Every metering and monitoring project starts with one question: how does the device get its data to you? There is no single "best" radio - each technology trades range, battery life, cost and mobility differently. Here's a plain-English comparison, and how to pick.

Compare in detail Talk to an engineer

LoRaWANlong range · low power
NB-IoTdeep indoor · cellular
LTE-Mmobile · higher data
Wireless M-Busshort range · battery
Wired M-Buscabled · legacy meters

Side by side

Five connectivity technologies, compared

The first three are wireless networks for getting data from the field; the last two are the metering bus standards you'll meet inside buildings. Most real deployments mix several - which is exactly what Divako is built to run.

  Unlicensed radio LoRaWAN Long-range, low-power Licensed cellular NB-IoT Operator network Licensed cellular LTE-M Operator network Unlicensed radio Wireless M-Bus Utility metering radio Wired bus M-Bus Wired meter bus
Spectrum Unlicensed sub-GHz (868 MHz in EU) Licensed cellular (operator) Licensed cellular (operator) Unlicensed sub-GHz (868 MHz in EU) None - physical two-wire cable (EN 13757)
Typical range 2-15 km, deep indoor penetration Cellular cell; excellent deep-indoor reach Cellular cell; good indoor reach Tens to a few hundred metres Up to ~1 km of cable run
Battery life Very long - 10-15 years Long - 10+ years (stationary) Shorter - higher power draw Very long - 10-15 years None needed - powered over the bus
Data rate Low (0.3-50 kbps) Low (~30-250 kbps) Medium (~1 Mbps), low latency Low - short metering frames Low-medium, very reliable
Mobility Static / nomadic Static - no cell handover Full mobility & handover Static (walk-by, drive-by or fixed) Static - physically wired
Who runs the network You do - your gateways, or a public LoRaWAN network Mobile operator (SIM / eSIM) Mobile operator (SIM / eSIM) You do - your collectors, gateways or drive-by You do - wired bus + level converter
Cost model Hardware capex, no per-device fee Per-SIM data subscription Per-SIM data subscription Hardware capex, no per-device fee Cabling capex, no recurring fee
Best for Dense, city-wide metering & sensors where you want to own the network Single, scattered meters where cellular coverage beats building a network Moving assets, or where you need more bandwidth / lower latency EU utility metering (water, heat, gas) with walk-by & drive-by In-building meter clusters where cabling already exists

Scroll the table sideways to see every column →

How to choose

It's rarely one technology - it's the right mix

A few rules of thumb our deployment teams use on real rollouts.

Going city-wide & want control?

LoRaWAN. Own the network, pay no per-meter fees, and get a decade of battery life. Ideal once you pass a few hundred devices in an area.

A handful of meters, spread out?

NB-IoT. Let the mobile operator carry coverage instead of building gateways. Great deep-indoor reach for basements and pits.

Assets that move, or need more data?

LTE-M. Handles mobility and handover, higher throughput and lower latency - at the cost of more power draw.

Classic utility metering?

Wireless M-Bus for radio walk-by and drive-by; wired M-Bus where cabling already runs between meters in a building.

Where Divako fits

Run every one of these from a single platform

You don't have to standardise on one radio - and you shouldn't. Divako ingests LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, LTE-M, Wireless M-Bus and wired M-Bus through one device library and one data pipeline, so coverage decisions stay an engineering choice, not a vendor lock-in.

Same console, same parsers, same alarms, same billing exports - whichever technology the meter in the field happens to speak.

  • One vendor-neutral device library across all five
  • Mix protocols in a single rollout without extra tooling
  • Gateway health, RSSI and coverage gaps as alerts
  • Normalised data straight into billing, ERP or SCADA
Book a demo See the network layer →

Go deeper

Technical deep dives in our knowledge base

This page is the overview. For protocol internals, device profiles and configuration, head to the Divako documentation.

LoRaWAN →

Architecture, device classes and Divako device profiles.