It seems that there will be no need in single channel GW soon…
These cannot come soon enough, been getting more and more questions and complaints from frustrated single channel gateway users due to its limitations - users rightfully confused and thinking that’s just how LoRa works. Fortunately should already be available mid-Jan!
I hear prices are much better than $100. You can actually already get SX1301-based gateways for $100 if you buy just 100 units…
I guess the question is will the TTN gateway arrive before these ones 
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Still I’m curious about the background. It would have the same form factor as the SX1301. There’s not much to strip in channels or spreading factors, nor is performance a real issue for gateways.
So what could possibly be stripped from an SX1301 to make it cheaper? And the other way around, if it performs somewhat similar why making a new chip design instead of dumping the existing design for which the manufacturing line already exists?
btw, the SX1301 wasn’t that expensive, was it? I understood a big part of the gateway cost was licensing. So how does a chip change that? Is it even a new chip or is it a rebranded licensing model?
There’s no even fake SX1301-style datasheet yet. But I guess thath they removed FPGA- and GPS-related stuff etc.
According to the (limited) specs at the Semtech website, the SX1308 has nothing stripped. Still 49 demodulators, 10 demodulation paths and ADR. Maybe it’s a production optimisation. Chip manufacturers often rush chip designs to the market, and later on release a version that is optimised for production (resulting in higher yields).
would make sense. In order to be competitive with other IoT protocols they also needed to drop something in price, either the gateway or the node components. Optimizing on revenue dropping the gateways seem to be the smartest option for them given the ratio gateways/nodes sold.
The SX1308 is actually already in stock and available to order at Arrow (which is new, SX1301 was special request )
http://www.chip1stop.com/web/USA/en/dispDetail.do?partId=SMTC-0017219
Price is $20.2 in qty 100
http://www.scoop.it/t/the-french-wireless-connection:
“Nestor Ayuso’s insight:
SX1308 is footprint compatible with SX1301
About half the price, $25 vs $50”
Which means the price for the chip itself won’t do too much for the gateway price.
@jmarcelino did you ever get your SX1301’s running?
Fear of NB-IoT made Semtech more amenable
I got the SX1301 mounted and talking over SPI but didn’t finish the RF part yet… ran into some problems and Will, who did the original work, also gave up on it. But actually someone else in a more private forum offered to help with that very recently so I may come back to it over Xmas.
Also I’m happy with RisingHF now supplying good quality and certified gateway boards at $100 - and soon at $75 - so it became a more educational project than anything else.
This chip would make a nice Kickstarter project!
Due to typical 5x markup from electronic component BoM to sale price, a drop from $50 to $25 for the key IC should result in a ~$125 drop in gateway MSRP.
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5x markup on BOM… I think that’s only true for space and/or military applications
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This new chipset is great news for getting the gateway price even lower. Can’t share information yet. But you can imagine we have read this news as well
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@jmarcelino I do not mean 5x markup on COGS but rather on the cost of the component kit alone. A comparable COGS multiplier would be 2.5X. Less than that and it’s hard to keep the lights on…
If you order one SX1308 picocell gateway (chip), it seems to be shipped already and 1pc is about 37USD. Range is meant for buildings. Order seems to be available here: https://www.arrow.com/en/products/sx1308imltrt/semtech
It’s just a chip, not a whole gateway.
Yes, I would like to know too. I got a quotation from them about a week ago and it is $155 USD.