WAN is an emerging technology that offers several benefits compared to traditional technologies. Wireless network technologies such as WiFi, ZigBee, Bluetooth etc can handle only consumer applications of the Internet of Things (IoT), but many industrial, civic, and other IoT applications need to operate over vastly greater territory than these technologies. Even-though cellular and satellite machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies have traditionally filled this gap, but cost, power,and scalability concerns make these choices less appealing for the future. A number of low- power,wide-area networking (LP-WAN) alternatives have arisen that need careful consideration to address these wide-ranging IoT applications…

Source: Shaping the Future with WAN alternatives : Sigfox, LoRaWAN & Weightless – Keleno