NB-IoT vs SigFox vs LoRa

YiKai, this is a very good topic.  Although it might be more of a blog type reply...here goes.

It is important to understand the commercial differences as well as the technical differences between Sigfox, Lora and NB-IOT.

For example, since Sigfox is optimized for 10-20 year lifetime of a alkaline battery, you can deploy millions of devices and never have to worry about them.

Lora is higher bandwidth and supports greater downlink bandwidth thus consuming more power.  

Cellular is NOT considered a good option for battery operation in high volumes.

Cost-wise, Sigfox is at the lowest end of the spectrum with low cost modules and $1/year connectivity plans.  

And, because Sigfox is a Public network, you don't have the headache of building and supporting the gateways or WAN aggregation hardware as you do with LORA. 

I could go on further but my point is that depending on what you want to do in IoT, you can choose from these 3 solutions to decide the best fit for your use case.

So if someone say, "this technology is better" you can challenge them and say, "they are different and should be considered together against a set of technical and commercial requirements."

Sorry if that sounds "preachy" but the fact is, all 3 are powerful technologies and should be considered carefully for their cost/benefit trade-offs.

Dave