Swisscom LoRaWAN

This page describes the use of Swisscom LoRaWAN as connectivity provider in akenza

Swisscom provides a swiss wide Low Power Network (LPN) over LoRaWAN. It already covers more than 96% of the area of switzerland, making it one of the biggest public available LoRa networks in Switzerland.

On akenza, two options are available to make use of the Swisscom LoRaWAN network:

1. Connectivity-as-a-Service

The Swisscom LoRaWAN network can be chosen on akenza as Connectivity-as-a-Service (CaaS). Therefore, Swisscom CaaS needs to be selected on a Data Flow as device connector.

CaaS allows one to quickly get started with an IoT project without the need of setting up an individual account for a network provider. The LoRaWAN account gets managed through akenza. Device connectivity prices will be invoiced automatically through akenza. Additional connectivity costs will occur by using Swisscom LoRaWAN.

2. Connecting own account

The seamless integration from the LoRa network into akenza makes the management of already connected IoT devices and new projects effortless.

In order to manage a Swisscom LoRaWAN account, only the username and password are required. For further communication with the system in question, an API-User will be generated by akenza.

Said password is never stored in akenza!

Once the credentials are entered, the integration name and how the data is processed can be specified in the next step.

If the checkbox Process Data in akenza is selected, the data will be forwarded to akenza. This only affects devices created through akenza and has no impact on already registered devices. If this option is unselected, the data will not be forwarded to akenza. Instead, devices created through akenza will have the default data route assigned, which can be configured on the Swisscom system. Alternatively, during the setup of the integration, a new data route can be created. If this option is chosen, the newly created data route will be assigned to all devices created through akenza (in addition to the data route forwarding the data to akenza, if specified).

When creating a data route, the content type and destination can be specified.

It is highly encouraged to use uplink and downlink security. Otherwise, IoT devices and applications can be compromised.

The Application Server ID can be any string, however, it would be best if a long and random generated string is used instead.

The Application Server Key needs to be a HEX string consisting of 32 characters. The functionality to generate such a random key is provided by akenza.

After the setup, the integration gets created and the initial synchronization will start. Depending on how many devices are registered, the process can take a few minutes.

Once the synchronization succeeds, all devices will be displayed in the overview of the tab Assets. The devices can now be managed on akenza.

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