LoRaWAN® Asset Tracking: The Lowest-Cost Solution Without Citywide Coverage

When people think about asset tracking, the first assumption is usually that it requires nationwide cellular coverage and constant, real-time GPS updates. After all, LTE-M and NB-IoT have long been promoted as the go-to technologies for logistics, supply chain management, and transportation visibility.

But the reality is different. Most companies do not need minute-by-minute location updates for every pallet, container, or shipment. What they need is reliable checkpoints and condition data that allow them to manage supply chains efficiently, reduce costs, and make informed business decisions.

This is where LoRaWAN® has proven itself to be the most practical, reliable, and cost-effective choice for asset tracking — even without citywide or nationwide coverage.

What Customers Really Need From Asset Tracking

The misconception is that customers demand continuous tracking across every mile of the journey. In practice, their requirements are far more focused:

• When did the shipment leave the warehouse or distribution center?
• When was it expected to arrive — and when did it actually arrive?
• What happened to it along the way? Were temperature, humidity, shocks, or vibration within acceptable limits?

With that information alone, customers can predict delivery times, confirm quality standards, and make quick decisions. If goods were delayed or exposed to harmful conditions, they may be rejected or flagged for inspection. If they arrive as expected and in good condition, they move through the system seamlessly.

It’s the same model you see with courier services like FedEx or UPS. Customers don’t track every turn of the truck — they care about departure, arrival, and confirmation of conditions.

Why Wide-Area Coverage Is Overrated

Cellular operators often argue that wide-area, macro coverage is essential for logistics. But in real-world operations, that level of tracking rarely provides additional value.

A food distributor, for example, does not need to know that a refrigerated truck is at one intersection in the city at 10:34 AM and another intersection at 10:36 AM. What matters is whether the goods left on time, whether the temperature inside the trailer stayed within range, and whether they arrived on schedule.

In other words, coverage where it matters is more important than coverage everywhere.

How LoRaWAN® Provides Coverage Where It Counts

Unlike cellular, LoRaWAN® doesn’t rely on nationwide infrastructure. Instead, it works with a local deployment model that gives companies control over their own tracking environment.

• A single $250 indoor KONA Micro Gateway or a $500 outdoor KONA Enterprise Gateway is enough to provide coverage at each site.
• Devices such as TEKTELIC TUNDRA sensors continuously record temperature, shocks, vibration, and other parameters during transport.
• When the truck arrives at the destination, the device automatically uploads all stored data through the gateway — giving the customer full visibility.

This simple model delivers everything customers need without the burden of SIM cards, roaming charges, or subscription fees. And because devices are ruggedized (–40°C to +65°C) and reusable, they can be deployed across multiple shipments, creating a highly cost-effective cycle.

For mid-sized logistics companies managing routes between several warehouses and retail locations, this model can scale quickly while keeping costs under control.

The Advantage Indoors: Where Most Tracking Happens

One of the most overlooked facts is that most tracking happens indoors — not on highways. Assets spend more time inside warehouses, factories, hospitals, trailers, or storage areas than they do in transit.

Here is where LoRaWAN® has a clear advantage over cellular and GNSS-based solutions:

• Cellular penetration challenges: LTE-M and NB-IoT signals struggle to penetrate metal trailers, reinforced warehouses, or underground facilities.
• GNSS limitations: GPS requires line-of-sight to satellites, making it ineffective inside warehouses or factories.
• LoRaWAN® advantage: Sub-GHz frequencies penetrate buildings and enclosed spaces much better.
• Hybrid positioning: LoRaWAN® integrates with BLE and WiFi for accurate indoor positioning, enabling companies to know not just when goods arrive, but also where inside a facility they are located.

This hybrid capability is becoming critical for modern supply chains, where bottlenecks often occur in warehousing and distribution centers, not on the road.

Cost and Power Efficiency: The ROI Drivers

Two of the biggest barriers to scaling cellular IoT for tracking are battery life and connectivity costs.LoRaWAN® addresses both.

• Battery life: LoRaWAN® asset trackers can last multiple years on a single battery, depending on reporting frequency. By contrast, LTE-M/NB-IoT devices consume far more energy, especially in poor coverage areas where they retransmit data repeatedly. That translates into higher maintenance and replacement costs.
• Connectivity cost: Cellular solutions require paid SIM cards and monthly subscriptions for every device. Across thousands of shipments, these costs add up quickly. LoRaWAN® connectivity, once gateways are deployed, is essentially free — making it economically viable for large-scale operations.

When companies calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO), LoRaWAN® consistently comes out ahead.

A Real-World Example

Consider a company shipping fresh produce from a regional warehouse to multiple supermarkets.

• At the warehouse, goods are loaded into refrigerated trucks equipped with LoRaWAN® sensors.
• During transport, the sensors log temperature and vibration data.
• At the supermarket, a simple gateway automatically collects the data when the truck arrives.

With this setup, the distributor knows:

• Whether the shipment left on time.
• Whether the cold chain was maintained.
• Whether the goods arrived as expected.

No SIM cards. No roaming fees. No battery swaps every few weeks. Just simple, cost-effective visibilitywhere it matters most.

Why LoRaWAN® Outperforms Cellular in Asset Tracking

To summarize the advantages:

• Coverage where it matters: Gateways at origin and destination sites provide all the visibility most businesses need.
• Indoor reliability: LoRaWAN® signals penetrate warehouses, factories, and trailers better than cellular.
• Hybrid accuracy: LoRaWAN® can integrate with BLE and WiFi for precise indoor positioning.
• Lower cost: Devices are less expensive, connectivity is free, and hardware can be reused.
• Battery efficiency: Multi-year lifetimes reduce maintenance and replacement costs.

For customers, this translates into the lowest total cost of ownership and a tracking model that aligns with real-world operations — not with theoretical nationwide coverage maps.

Conclusion

LoRaWAN® may not provide citywide, real-time coverage in the same way cellular networks do — but that is not what most asset tracking customers actually require. What they need is reliable checkpoints, condition monitoring, and affordable scalability.

By delivering exactly that — with lower costs, better indoor coverage, multi-year battery life, and hybrid positioning capabilities — LoRaWAN® has become the most practical and widely adopted technology for asset tracking worldwide.

In short, the value of LoRaWAN® is not in covering every road and highway, but in solving the real, everyday problems of logistics, distribution, and supply chain management.

Interested in exploring how LoRaWAN® can optimize asset tracking for your business? Discover TEKTELIC’s portfolio of gateways and sensors designed for logistics and supply chain visibility. Contact us today to learn more: info@tektelic.com