# Mobile Networks and Internet of Things Infrastructures to Characterize Smart Human Mobility
## 4 Emerging Technologies in Human Mobility
### Integration of Emerging IoT Communication Technologies  
As with any emerging technologies, IoT and human mobility bring with them a slew of complications to overcome in terms of the wireless wide area networks (WWAN). To solve it, low power wide area networks (LPWAN) have been a popular low-rate long-range radio communication technology. Sigfox, LoRa, and 3 GPP, i.e., extended coverage GSM (EC-GSM), long term evolution for machines (LTE-M), and narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), and are the three leading LPWAN technologies that compete for large-scale IoT deployment. Thus, LPWANs and WLANs are fundamentally changing the IoT landscape [91]. Since human mobility environments require devices mobility within similar or heterogeneous LPWAN technologies, supporting mobility refers to ensure the delivery of data on demand and during movement. In other words, the challenges of using IoT in the human mobility research is based on admitting that good network connectivity between devices is essential for communication works well. They must be able to communicate their positions during human movements. Thus, human mobility in this context is defined as the act of moving between gateways (GW) of different technologies and operators. Therefore, it is expected that devices may support more than one technology to achieve timely delivery of human movements information. In Figure 6, we compare LPWAN technologies and different mobile phone generations by six specific indicators: coverage, spectrum bandwidth, number of base station, power consumption, penetration, and latency. All of them are measured from 0 to 5; it can be clearly seen which technology is best in which position. For each indicator, the value 5 is assigned to the technology that has the highest value. The chart has two line series, all coloured differently, one stands for a type of technology; six ticks mean six indicators. Although cellular networks require high-band spectrum, installing of the base station and high power consumption, the indicators as coverage, penetration, and latency are the primary drivers for LPWAN applications. However, coverage, energy consumption, cost, and battery life are different characteristics that LPWAN solution may involve significant trade-offs. In addition, they support a plethora of devices in heterogeneous environments with varying expectations. Hence, LPWAN solutions may be customized to cover human mobility applications. As we mentioned, LoRa, Sigfox, and 3 GPP (EC-GSM, LTE-M, and NB-IoT) are the major competitors in the LPWAN space. The end goals of both three technologies are very similar: mobile network operators adopt their technology for IoT deployments over both city and nationwide low power wide-area networks (LPWAN). Although the business models and technologies behind Sigfox, LoRa Alliance, Sigfox, and 3 GPP companies are quite different, they use unlicensed communication technologies. In Table 2, we summarize the properties and technical aspects of LoRa, Sigfox, and 3 GPP. LoRa or LoRaWAN networks are an open ecosystem, with strong security specifications, enabling bi-directional communication with focus in capacity, scalability, and optimization for mobility. They present an architecture fault-tolerant and high availability, including a redundant platform. Moreover, LoRa Alliance is creating business efficiencies and improving lives around the world. For example, [92] explores the resource of these networks to monitor fuel tanks used by supply companies. Fill level and other valuable data of these tanks are sent over LoRaWAN networks.