IoT Networks Get New Rival

Silver Spring preps public net

by Rick Merritt - EETimes, Dec. 09, 2015 – 

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Silver Spring Networks joined the increasingly crowded race to provide a wide-area wireless network for the Internet of Things. Starfish is a public version of the 900 MHz network the company developed initially for smart utility meters.

Nearly a dozen contenderss are trying to fill a need for long distance networks that cut the cost and power consumption of today's cellular machine-to-machine networks. Silver Spring believes it can offer at relatively low cost significantly better throughput and latency than current leading 900 MHz competitors in the space, Sigfox and the LoRa Alliance.

The latest version of the Silver Spring network is capable of data rates up to 1.2 Mbits/second and 10-50 millisecond latency per hop, typically limited to three hops. It claims point-to-point reach up to 50 miles.

Aapo Markkanen, an analyst following the sector for market watcher Machina Research expressed skepticism about the company's figures of merit for its 900 MHz network. "They may be able to achieve those data rates or that latency or that range separately, but in real life the performance of needs to be compromised significantly on all fronts," he said.

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