LoRa (Long Range) and ROLA (Radio over LAA) are key technologies in the Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) space. While LoRa excels in low-power, long-range communication, ROLA is designed for high-speed, low-latency scenarios. Together, they create a complementary and competitive ecosystem.
LoRa and ROLA Technologies
LoRa dominates the field of low power consumption and long-distance transmission with its linear FM spread spectrum (CSS) modulation technology. The latest data shows that more than 6 million LoRa gateways have been deployed globally, with terminal nodes exceeding 300 million. LoRa has covered intelligent agriculture, industrial monitoring, and other areas.
ROLA, on the other hand, relies on LAA (licensed shared spectrum) technology to integrate the high-speed transmission and low-latency characteristics of the 5G era into the Internet of Things (IoT). It is accelerating penetration in areas with high real-time demand, such as intelligent transport and remote medical care.
The underlying design logic of both
LoRa sacrifices rate for depth of coverage, typically transmitting over distances of up to 15km, but at rates of only a few hundred bps.
ROLA, on the other hand, achieves transmission rates of tens of Mbps with millisecond latency by optimising spectrum utilisation, but coverage is limited to a few kilometres.
This difference determines the stratification of their application scenarios. The former focuses on wide-area data collection, while the latter serves immediate interaction needs.
Competition between private and public network ecosystems
LoRa’s rise is due to its decentralised deployment capabilities. Enterprises can build their own private networks, avoiding the risk of data flowing through carriers. This feature is especially critical in highly sensitive areas such as finance and government affairs.
In contrast, ROLA relies on carrier-led 5G public network infrastructure for its development. 23 countries worldwide have already included ROLA in their smart city standards frameworks by 2025. Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has achieved real-time traffic signal regulation through its ROLA network, reducing peak hour congestion by 18 per cent. However, ROLA’s high frequency band licensing cost and module price (about $10) are still the threshold for SMEs.
Notably, hybrid networking models are emerging. An industrial park in Shenzhen, China, uses LoRa for equipment status monitoring (average daily data volume of 5TB), while ROLA is responsible for real-time production line control. Both through the edge computing node collaboration, the comprehensive cost reduction of 34%. This “low-speed wide-area + high-speed local area” combination, or become the future mainstream.
From chip iteration to security upgrade
LoRa’s shortcomings focus on network capacity and rate. A single gateway only supports 65,000 connections, and the data rate is difficult to exceed 50kbps. This leads to its limitation in high-density scenarios such as smart factories. For this reason, Semtech introduces the FMS networking solution. It increases the capacity to 200,000 nodes through dynamic channel allocation and introduces AES-256 encryption to strengthen data security.
ROLA, on the other hand, faces the challenges of spectrum interference and lack of standardisation. The 5G LAA band it relies on is susceptible to traditional Wi-Fi devices, with measurements showing packet loss as high as 12% in urban centres. In 2024, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) released the ROLA v2.0 protocol. New interference suppression algorithms and multi-hop relay functions were added, increasing interference immunity by 40%.
The divergence in security mechanisms is equally significant. LoRaWAN ensures the confidentiality of medical monitoring data through end-to-end encryption and dynamic key update. ROLA, on the other hand, relies on carrier-grade firewalls and slicing technology, but the enterprise has less autonomous control.
Reconstructing scenarios from farmland to the operating theatre
In the agricultural field, LoRa shows irreplaceable value. Jiangsu Nongken Group deploys 100,000 soil sensors and uploads temperature and humidity data daily through LoRa network. Combined with AI models to optimise irrigation, the water saving rate reaches 27%. The role of ROLA in precision agriculture is more oriented to drone swarm control. Its 20ms command response speed reduces the error of collaborative seeding by 100 drones to 0.3 metres.
Medical scenarios, on the other hand, highlight the complementary nature of the technologies. Wuhan Union Medical College Hospital uses LoRa to transmit patient sign data (12,000 items per day), while real-time consultation of 4K surgical images is realised through ROLA, with latency controlled within 50ms. This “low-speed monitoring + high-speed interaction” model is reshaping the workflow of telemedicine.
In industrial scenarios, the competition between LoRa and ROLA is more direct. Sany Heavy Industries uses LoRa in excavator fault prediction (average daily data transmission 2GB). Baosteel, on the other hand, chose ROLA to realise millisecond state regulation of rolling mills, with a cost difference of up to three times.
Convergence of Edge Intelligence and Spectrum Sharing
In 2025, both technologies are converging towards edge computing. LoRa supports local data analysis by model lightweighting and compressing 671B parameter algorithms into the Rise 910 chip. ROLA, on the other hand, combines with AI acceleration cards to complete real-time processing of video streams on the base station side, reducing bandwidth consumption by 60%.
At the policy level, LoRa’s “unlicensed spectrum + private network” model is more attractive in the context of increasing awareness of data sovereignty. India, Brazil and other countries have listed LoRa as the recommended technology for smart cities, while ROLA is accelerating popularity in Japan, South Korea and other 5G-advanced regions.
