The world record for the longest LoRaWAN connection has been broken. As part of an experiment, a successful WAN network was laid over more than a thousand kilometers by sea.

The Things Network describes the successful record attempt in a blog. A small fishing boat floating on the artificial line of the Portuguese town of Sesimbra, about forty kilometers south of Lisbon, made contact with a gate in the Canary Islands. As the crow flies, the distance is 1336 km, which also makes it the most extended “long-haul” WAN to date.

On land, on water and in the air

The previous record came in 2020, when a balloon was launched in the Netherlands with an antenna on board that would connect to a gateway in the French city of Grenoble. The connection lasted up to a distance of 832 kilometers, when the balloon had already been hovering over German airspace for a long time. This record was shattered by five hundred kilometers.

This experiment is particularly fun and interesting from an IoT perspective. LoRaWAN is a type of WAN that uses long distance connections to maximize the area the network can cover. The fact that it is technically possible to keep the connection stable over such a long distance opens up new applications.

The height differences between the goal and the balloon undoubtedly played a role in the recording so far. You have no or less of this obstacle when you can walk on water. But this result is also extraordinary. We are therefore curious to see where the limits of WAN technology lie. Another record attempt may already be underway somewhere in the world.