Capturing/subscribing data to Application server

  1. Do we definitely need a network server in the architecture? Or can LoraWAN gateway directly communicate to the application server?

  1. If the communication happens from the gateway to the application server, can we control the data capturing that we receive using Python Libraries such as - paho-mqtt

  2. Also, at some level does the user have to pay for using the Lora App Server? Because in my use case, I receive data only once in an hour, which will fall under some class of support? (A,B,C)?

Yes, you need a network-server as it handles the LoRaWAN protocol. The application server handles the decryption of the FRMPayload, the management of devices and integration with the end-application.