Gateway capacity

[Alvaro_F]

Hi! I’m trying to understand how many nodes my SX1302-based gateway can handle. I know that LoRaWAN is designed to scale, and numbers like 1,000 nodes per gateway are often mentioned online. However, only a limited number of nodes can transmit data to the gateway simultaneously.

The SF orthogonality allows, for instance, 8x8 virtual channels on the SX1302 (8 frequency channels with 8 different SFs). However, the transceiver has 16 demodulators, which means that only 16 packets can be demodulated simultaneously by the gateway.

Could anyone confirm if my understanding is correct?

It’s the developer responsability to ensure that nodes will not likely communicate simultaneously?

[clavisound]

@Alvaro_F

which means that only 16 packets can be demodulated simultaneously by the gateway.

I think this is true only in ideal situation.

Consider also that.

LoRa can demodulate different signals on different SF’s but if SF9 is received in GW with more than 7dB stronger then the demodulation of SF7 fails. In other words a SF9 +7dB LoRa signal masks a SF7 signal.

SF7 masks the SF9 LoRa message if its transimitting 12.5dB more than SF9.

Maybe you want to read this.

@Alvaro_F

It’s the developer responsability to ensure that nodes will not likely communicate simultaneously?

I would say that the responsible is your LoRaWAN library your are using together with the LNS. But I read many horror stories where developers where (ir)responsible.

Random delay, ADR, random SF, power, less bytes are some parameters that maybe as developer you may want to explore.