Australian IoT integrator Meshed has established local hosting infrastructure for The Things Network, a global, free-to-use network of LoRaWAN base stations.

This means Australian users of the low-power wide area network will not have to route their traffic via The Netherlands.

Meshed director Catherine Caruana-McManus told IoT Hub: “We have provided a federated hosting architecture in-country. This means users can point to the local server instead of the Things Network’s server in Europe. Having local infrastructure will reduce latency and provide greater resilience for local users. For IoT developers that is really important as we see the network now being used to test deployments.”

The Things Network was started in Amsterdam in October 2015, with the aim of building an open, free and decentralised IoT network. It now has more than 24,000 members in 500 communities across 94 countries.

Anyone operating a LoRaWAN base station can join and by so doing enable users of LoRaWAN devices to exchange data with those devices via the Internet and the Things Network’s servers located in initially in Amsterdam and now also in Singapore and Australia.

The Things Network’s web page for Sydney shows 11 gateways and 71 contributors. Melbourne has two gateways and 48 contributors. In total, Australia has 50 gateways in 22 towns and cities.

Caruana-McManus said the server would also be accessible for Things Network users in New Zealand.

“The Things Network sees Australia and New Zealand as really exciting regions. We have been very active in the adoption of the free IoT service,” she added.

“The Things Network now has a commercial side, the Things Industry. Meshed has set up a private LoRaWAN network for the City of the Gold Coast.”

Meshed has installed and operates IoT networks in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich, Wollongong and Cairns and since early 2016 has been operating a community IoT network enabling anyone within range of one of its LoRaWAN base stations to connect their sensors to the internet for free.