Orange, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators, has joined the LoRa® Alliance as a Board member.

Orange is joining other Alliance Board members including IBM, Cisco, Bouygues Telecom, Actility, Augtek, Homerider, Kerlink, KPN, Proximus, Sagemcom and Semtech and Alliance members Schneider, Bosch, Murata, DU Emirates Integrated Telecom, Swisscom, Tata Telecommunications, Telkomsel and others to drive the global success of the LoRaWAN® protocol, a global, carrier-grade low power wide area network (LPWAN), that provides long-range, low-power connectivity between sensors and base stations. The LoRaWAN protocol enables Internet of Things innovation through openly available specification, certified secure interoperability, open business models and a strong global ecosystem.

In Sept. 2015, Orange announced it would build an Internet of Things network across France to provide a foundation for a range of “smart city” applications. After a successful test of the LoRaWAN protocol in Grenoble, France, with more than 50 partner companies, Orange selected the networking technology as the basis for this network rollout. To date, Orange is the largest operator adopter of the LoRaWAN standard. The network will allow cities and companies to develop smart city applications and to run them on the Orange network thus avoiding having to build out their own infrastructure.

Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière, Senior Executive Vice President for Innovation, Marketing and Technologies at Orange, said: "The development of the Internet of Things is expected to surge in the coming years. As a part of our new Essentials2020 strategic plan and the announcement of our France-wide LoRaWAN network, we have decided to take an active role in driving the success of the LoRa® Alliance. LoRaWAN™ is complementary to our overall strategy for Internet of Things. LoRa Alliance and LoRaWAN meet customers feature expectations, our business model and has the largest LPWAN eco-system.”

LoRaWAN networks have distinctive properties that make them well suited to be cost effectively deployed for a wide range of IoT and M2M applications including: Metering, Supply chain management, Maintenance / supervision, Agriculture and precision farming, Intelligent building, Identification / geolocation, Smart city.

“Having Orange join the Alliance is a testament to the strong global ecosystem, with over 300 member companies, the Alliance has built in just the past year,” said Geoff Mulligan, Chairman of the Alliance. “We are excited that a leading global telecommunication operator like Orange, with a strong focus on open standardization bodies, is joining the LoRa Alliance to contribute their knowledge and drive the further adoption and evolution of this open standard.”