Maximum Duty Cycle
What is it?
In the LoRaWAN® context, the maximum duty cycle refers to governmental regulation of the duty cycle for radio devices. The duty cycle itself is a cycle that indicates the fraction of time a resource is busy. While regulations may vary across different locations, the common limitation is 1%.
European regulations
Regarding the European region, the duty cycle is governed by section 4.3.3 of the ETSI EN300.220-2 V3.2.1 (2018-06) standard. This standard is intended to delineate sub-bands and their duty cycles.
It offers the following regulations:
- K (863 MHz – 865 MHz): 0.1%
- L (865 MHz – 868 MHz): 1%
- M (868 MHz – 868.6 MHz): 1%
- N (868.7 MHz – 869.2 MHz): 0.1%
- P (869.4 MHz – 869.65 MHz): 10%
- Q (869.7 MHz – 870 MHz): 1%
Join frequency specifications
The LoRaWAN® specification allocates duty cycles to the join frequencies used for over-the-air activations (OTAA) by all LoRaWAN® capable end devices. In the majority of regions, the duty cycle for these frequencies is typically configured at 1%.
