Application Note for LPWA Cellular Networks

Applications should not be considered immediately portable between LPWA technology types and the higher bandwidth technology types. Applications leveraging LTE-M or Narrowband IoT should have advanced error processing to accommodate for slow throughput and high retransmission rates. The application should also use advanced methods for reduction of the size of packets sent. This includes reducing the size of TLS handshakes using pre-shared keys as well as using CBOR or some other application layer mechanism to reduce the data payload size. Developers should make the application aware of when the device enters into coverage enhancement modes. Coverage enhancement modes can greatly reduce the data throughput rate and greatly increase various errors within the TLS stack, IP stack, and the application due to timeouts or retransmissions. In order to maintain an LPWA device and improve its longevity, developers should take note of the elements called out in this section in order to reduce the overall time the radio is on and sending or receiving data.