SigFox is a French company founded in 2009 that provides theLow-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) service – that is wireless and was created to work and interact with low-energy devices – such as sensors that run on conventional batteries – with data transfer rates of up to 12 bytes.

[blockquote]La red funciona con la tecnología de transmisión UNB –ultra narro band– y consiste en emplear canales estrechos del espectro para alcanzar grandes distancias con un requerimiento mínimo de energía. En las siguientes ilustraciones se muestran gráficamente las ventajas de usar canales de ancho de banda pequeños; en la primera se muestra que manejar datos en anchos de banda pequeños ayuda a evitar interferencias mientras que en la segunda gráfica se muestra la relación consumo energético-ancho de banda de varias tecnologías.[/blockquote]

The operation of this network is very similar to cellular telephone networks because this network operates from the placement of several receiving and transmitting stations; The difference between SigFox and cell phone stations is that the devices and sensors that are connected to the SigFox network are not depend to a single specific base station, that is, any station can receive the information and transmit it to the cloud.

The public band used for the exchange of messages in SigFox is in 200 kHz and in which each message has a width of 100 Hz and can be transmitted at a rate from 100 bits to 600 bits – those rates vary according to the country. Moreover the SigFox network uses bidirectional radio bands without an ISM license –industrial, scientific and medical radio bands, which are bands used for multiple uses except for telecommunications – in the United States of 902 MHz and in Europe of 868 MHz.

[blockquote]La seguridad es muy importante en esta red por lo que cada dispositivo debe tener asignado un código de identificación, cuenta con protocolos de encriptamiento VPN y emplea al final el protocolo https protocol[/blockquote]

A device can to work on this network, it is required that it contains a communication module compatible with SigFox – chips, board such as the MKRFox1200 or specific kits.