Advantages of SigFox | Disadvantages of SigFox
This page covers advantages and disadvantages of Sigfox wireless technology. It mentions Sigfox advantages (merits) and Sigfox disadvantages (demerits or drawbacks or limitations). This Pros and Cons guide of Sigfox is useful to understand the technology with respect to other existing low power and low throughput wireless technologies.
Sigfox introduction: It is low power and ultra narrow band wireless technology.
It is used for wide area networking of objects.
In Sigfox, the objects wanting to communicate will just send the data to the Sigfox Gateway/Base Station which will decode and
send the same to the cloud. The cloud is connected with the IT servers by various interfaces as per
different applications.
Based on the application of usage, Sigfox also supports two way communication between object and IT server.
The sigfox covers wide area and used for low data rate applications.
PROS of SIGFOX | Advantages of Sigfox
Following are the advantages of Sigfox:
➨It is lightweight protocol which handles smaller messages efficiently.
It uses about 26 bytes to transport 12 bytes of data. Hence it uses less protocol
overhead compare to conventional wireless systems.
In conventional wireless system, IP stack uses about 40 bytes to transport just 12 bytes of data.
➨As there are less data to be transmitted, less energy is needed and hence
battery life will be enhanced.
➨Due to less overhead, more space will be available for the user data to
be transported and hence this will increase the network capacity to a greater extent.
➨Sigfox is ultra narrow band technology and hence will accommodate more number of channels
in the same space compare to wideband wireless systems. Due to this, Sigfox will make use of
physical channel more efficiently. Hence more network capacity can be achieved.
➨Sigfox supports wide coverage area and used for low data rate applications.
➨Lower cost of network operations and ownership
➨Higher budget link for improved coverage
➨Used in many applications viz. smart city, metering, automotive, cellular connectivity
to offload traffic etc.
➨The technology can help communicate with buried underground equipments.
➨The technology utilizes signal processing algorithms to protect against interferences
of different kinds.
CONS of SIGFOX | Disadvantages of Sigfox
Following are the disadvantages of Sigfox:
➨CSMA/CA or other such techiques for collision detection/avoidance
are not being used in Sigfox.
➨There are duty cycle limitations in Europe and PSD spectrum radiation
limitations in Japan.
➨The narrow band spectrum emitted by single sigfox end device cause
strong interference to nearby existing wideband system.
More such sigfox devices will further enhance the interference.
➨Sigfox supports one way communication without acknowledement.
This necessitates multiple transmissions if server does not receive data without errors.
Due to this power consumption will increase which depends on number of retransmissions.
➨Due to low data rate support, it can not be used for high data rate
applications.
➨Sigfox system works well in fixed location.
There are issues such as interference and frequency inaccuracies
in the mobility environments.
SigFox tutorial RELATED LINKS
SIGFOX Tutorial Main Page SIGFOX Network Architecture SIGFOX Protocol Stack SIGFOX Frame structure Advantages and Disadvantages of Sigfox SIGFOX Vs GSM SIGFOX Vs Wireless M-Bus SIGFOX technology basics NB IoT vs SIGFOX vs LoRa