The need of connectivity in rural remote area: IoT and Satellite

Internet of Things (IoT) applications are bringing fundamental changes in our life, and in all sectors of activity. It also represents an engine for innovation, economic growth, and social progress. (Precision) Agriculture is one of the sectors that is expected to highly benefit from the adoption and integration of IoT devices, and IoT network technologies in the classical agriculture value chain. By enhancing monitoring and actuation in e2e decision-making systems, IoT can help in optimising the production (utility and resource usage), maximise the profit and minimise the costs.

In the last decade, a large variety of IoT communication technologies has gradually emerged, reflecting a large diversity of application domains and communication requirements. Among them, Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology came out as a better choice for enabling longer-range connections, at greater cost and power efficiencies. LPWANs allow low power devices interacting directly with some gateways through long-range transmissions. Therefore, they are suitable for scenarios such as precision agriculture (e.g. soil moisture, crop growth), and environmental monitoring applications that require low data-rate, and are tolerant to packet loss, and transmission delay.

Some of the scenarios for precision agriculture and environmental monitoring may be located in remote, sparsely populated areas that do not have mobile terrestrial coverage, or other forms of connectivity. In this context, the satellite technology comes into play, as a key enabler to transform IoT connectivity across industries and geographical borders and allow global IoT coverage.