LoRa Frequency Bands India

Are there any license free LoRa frequency bands in India?

We have been getting this question from many clients over the past couple of months and we thought we will make it clear as to where we stand on the matter at this time. A little back ground first because most people (even many IoT experts) are just discovering LoRa.

LoRa is a long range (10+ Kms) low data rate, low power wireless communication technology intended to fill the huge void between short range technologies like BLE, WiFi, Zigbee etc and long range but operator and network dependent GSM standards. It’s still very early days but as of now for parties interested IoT LoRa could be godsend.

LoRa can work with many frequency bands in the ISM band of frequencies, but the popular bands are

This is because the only known semiconductor product capable of completing a LoRaWAN, the Semtech SX1301 supports only these bands. This might remain so for some time to come because of Semtech keeping things tight with the supply of SX1301 and even documentation about the SX1301.

Now the confusion arises in India because the 865 MHz to 867 MHz license free band in India ends at 867 MHz, as per the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology directions as mentioned here. Bit of a conundrum because in the ITU Region 1 (Mostly Europe) 863-870 MHz is license free (How I wish the British had decided our frequency bands before leaving).

LoRa Frequency Band

However, there is a silver lining with the 868 MHz LoRa band. As with all frequency bands there are 8 channels in the 868 MHz LoRa band. These eight channels are spread over frequencies starting at 865.20 MHz and ending at 868 MHz. So in reality a major portion of the 868 MHz LoRa frequency channels are in the license free 865 MHz – 867 MHz band in India. Seven out of the eight channels are in the license free band in India.

So as things stand right now we are good to go with LoRa in India.

Update (01-01-2017)

On a related note we came across this example implementation on LoRaWAN Frequencies that are within the legal bounds for licence free implementation in India. This implementation is from loriot.io, one of few free network servers for implementing test/trail LoRaWAN deployments. More details on the same in a separate post in a future.

Channel Frequency Modulation / BW
0 865.400 MHz MultiSF 125 kHz
1 865.600 MHz MultiSF 125 kHz
2 865.800 MHz MultiSF 125 kHz
3 866.000 MHz MultiSF 125 kHz
4 866.200 MHz MultiSF 125 kHz
5 866.400 MHz MultiSF 125 kHz
6 866.600 MHz MultiSF 125 kHz
7 866.800 MHz MultiSF 125 kHz
LoRa 865.700 MHz SF7 250 kHz
FSK 865.700 MHz FSK 250 kHz, 64 kbps
RX2 channel (downlink)
RX2 865.200 MHz SF12 125 kHz

Trademark Disclaimer: LoRa and LoRaWAN are Trademarks of Semtech Corporation