Hi everyone, I’m currently doing a final school project based on LoRaWan and unfortunately my city does not have any LoRaWan gateways, so I need to buy one. I’ve been thinking about buying the Mikrotik kit, but I can’t find it locally. Do you guys have any recommendations for relatively cheap (under 200€) outdoor gateway that I can use with SMA antenna and has (optionally) a SIM modem? I can also go with indoors gateway and expose only antenna.
Rather tight on the budget for outdoor with LTE. And if you can’t get the MikroTik and not knowing where in the world you are, the best bet would be for you to find what you can get, list it and ask for opinions.
As the chip sets are from the same place and making a gateway is a non-trivial job, pretty much anyone that has them available in the distribution chain will be OK.
If you are up for a little DIY, then a TTIG at ~$/£/€90 that connects on WiFi, crack open the case and patch in an external antenna, add a cheap MiFi dongly-module thing and buy an IP54 case. IP54 is good for outdoors. IP67 is good for submarines, and as deploying a gateway under water is pointless, so is buying a deluxe over-the-top case.
Spend as much as you can on the antenna and it’s positioning.
And search the forum for lots of opinions on gateways, recommendations and the futility of asking about increasing range - as the only answer pretty much boils down to a well positioned (aka high, free of obstructions) good (as in not cheap) antenna.
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You can refer to the outdoor gateway of this platform( ( 4G Router, 5G Router| Four-Faith - URL redacted) ). For students for learning purposes, some relatively cheap outdoor gateways can be provided. For details, you can consult the staff online.
We have a waterproof gateway and the price depends on the amount you want.
Summary
Feature Summary
- Support the POE switch power supply and 12V adapter power supply
- Support IEEE802.3-2012 Type 1, the IEEE802.3-2012 Type 1 requires a power supply device (PSE) to provide
44 to 57V, and the power of the powered device(PD) must not exceed 12.95 W and the current does not
exceed 350 mA
Support IEEE802.11n,IEEE802.11g,IEEE 802.11b Protocol - Support Network Communication of 4G Module (LTE-TDD/LTE-FDD) ( option )
- Support Bluetooth 5.2
- Support ZigBee3.0 (option)
- Support GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou/Compass, Galileo, QZSS (Option)
- Supporting waterproof IP66
- One WAN/LAN variable network port
- RoHS compliance(Lead-free)
- FCC,CE compliance
You can check the parameters and more details here.
https://www.dusuniot.com/product-specification/waterproof-of-industrial-hub/
Can’t see you LoRaWAN specifications, is it a LoRaWAN gateway?
Not at all helpful - you’ve linked to 4G/5G routers when a LoRaWAN gateway is required and this is a LoRaWAN only forum.
And no student has the capacity to arrange the import of a single unit.
Both @linmaji88 & @bruceqin have fallen into the trap of reading ‘gateway’ and assuming generic rather than in the context of this thread and this forum and showing LoRaWAN gateway link.
Both companies appear/claim to have such devices in both indoor and outdoor variant and have been references in other threads in the past. I can’t vouch for either as haven’t been provided any for review nor had direct need to buy for clients but it may be worth exploring the websites to find the right products……that or perhaps @linmaji88 & @bruceqin could post correct links in a reply to this message? 
Dusuniot options referenced in another thread in just the last few days……but I’m too lazy to go search! 
Also not helpful as explained in this post: Looking for openwrt gateway - #38 by descartes
If you and your colleague @tiny wish to make a good name for your company then you need to organise a sales channel to the EU at a competitive price - you could put a listing on eBay for any/all of the EU sites and go and look at what Europe pays for it’s gateways. If your feel you have a premium brand that justifies a high price, first of all you need to establish the brand as one of good standing.
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I would not recommend this at all for @hiimmilan - the reality of buying from overseas on a one-off basis via a complicated website is that you have to be able to afford to lose all your money and be able to make up time lost if product takes too long to arrive, doesn’t arrive or doesn’t work as expected.
But then like many students asking for help, we’ve not heard back from him/her.
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This platform has an introduction about LoRaWAN gateways. I think as long as the platform has related products, it can be used as a reference, which can help you have a clearer understanding of the products, rather than having to achieve a certain purpose.
LoRaWAN Gateway is a wireless data transmission gateway based on standard LoRaWAN protocol, and it applicable to the terminal and NS which meets standard LoRaWan protocol. It can be connected to LoRaWAN terminals in various application nodes, collects useful information and sends the data to cloud server through wireless 3G/4G cellular network or wired ethernet port.
For example, this product introduction of the platform can give us some understanding(LoRaWAN Gateway is a wireless data transmission gateway based on standard LoRaWAN protocol, and it applicable to the terminal and NS which meets standard LoRaWan protocol. It can be connected to LoRaWAN terminals in various application nodes, collects useful information and sends the data to cloud server through wireless 3G/4G cellular network or wired ethernet port.).
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Erm, nope, links directly to your LoRaWAN gateways would have merit - to a point - there’s the whole issue of how & where a student gets to buy them as well.
But a link to 4G/5G routers looks like a point & shoot drive-by marketing spam. Your second & third paragraphs don’t add anything we don’t already know.
Your very best bet, like Dusuniot, is to establish a simple sales outlet, something like eBay shipped from China or a local distributor. And you need to get someone using this stuff who can independently confirm it’s all good.
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Absolutely - my point entirely
That is what I am calling out here - either accidental link to the wrong product or a chancer looking to get some marketing/sales pull!
Remember our focus on this Forum is LoRaWAN…I guess it depends on which end of the telescope you are looking through as for the rest ‘its just WiFi’ or ‘Its just 3G/4G…5G anyone?!..’ as it needs to pass muster and the litmus test of how good is the LoRaWAN implementation - does the implementation have some USP? is it easy deploy or have some clever deep config capabilities or on GW diagnostics/monitoring, is it an ultra low power system c/w others, what is the LoRa/LoRaWAN performance, does it meet spec (L-A certified?), what is the support like, are there credible users/references, easy sales/support - pref in territory (remember TTN Community is global) - has it been called out by users with experience on the community…THEN & likely only then, does the rest of the ‘networking’ capabilities and features come into play! It might be the best 4G+WiFi GW in the world with easy set up (unlike some!) and a great price…but if LoRaWAN performance is under par/metoo or even crap then in the context of this forum its all a bit Meh! 
Will DM you ( & @bruceqin / @tiny ) with some suggestions & recommendations if when I get time later…
Hi there, thanks everyone for responses. I realized that I can get the mikrotik station for relatively good price if I buy the pieces individually - LoRA8 kit is basically wAP + LoRA PCIe card + SMA Adapter.
I’m a bit biased towards Mikrotik here, because I’m already familiar with RouterOS
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As you will see from forum comments if you search its a good/popular choice and not too expensive, especially for an outdoor/sheltered environment device - (I also use as small part of my fleet) - dont recommend regularly as set up can be challenging for none network savvy people or people intimidated by having almost too many choices, but a good one for people who want to get into config details on network side…as you are familiar go for it!
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