Cisco will stop selling long-distance networking products. A serious blow to the growing LoRaWAN market.

Bad news for companies with Cisco LoRaWAN products. With a short, dry announcement, Cisco announces the end of this product category. As of January 1, 2025, it will no longer be possible to purchase LoRaWan gateways from Cisco. The network provider promises to support already purchased products until December 31, 2026, but software support will end three years earlier.

Cisco’s announcement comes as a surprise. Until recently, Cisco continued to release new gateways and products for LoRaWan networks. Perhaps it has to do with the savings that Cisco, like many large technology companies, needs to make. In any case, LoRaWAN customers don’t have to hope for a way out from Cisco when Cisco finally pulls the plug.

Long distance

LoRaWAN is an interesting technology for IoT applications. LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is a type of WAN that uses long distance connections to maximize the area the network can cover. Sensors and devices can be networked energy-efficiently over long distances. The record is 1336 km, from Lisbon to the Canary Islands.

Interest in such networks is increasing. Analysts estimate the annual growth of the LoRaWAN industry at around ten percent. With Cisco, one of the largest providers is now disappearing from the market, which could deal a serious blow to this growth. Bosch is one of the major parties in LoRaWAN.

Security experts warn against LoRaWAN. Connections are generally encrypted, but an experienced hacker can easily break this encryption. Once hackers gain access, they can do many things. For a secure implementation of LoRaWan, additional security measures and a thorough network audit are necessary.