Sigfox is a private French company which offers a cloud-based solution to optimize scalability, costs and energy consumption in terms of IoT.  Sigfox uses a radio system based on ultra-narrow band technology. It is also known as a Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) and can be compared with the open source based LoRaWAN connectivity protocol. LPWAN uses a long-range signal in the SRD band (868 megahertz in Europe, 902 megahertz in the USA), which can pass through even massive objects.

The characteristics of Sigfox are:

• Proprietary architecture
• Bidirectional communication
• End-to-end encryption
• Low power consumption
• Wide network range
• Service & support provided

Sigfox does not build any hardware itself but leaves it to partner companies. The semiconductors and modules of these companies are in turn built into individual devices from different manufacturers. Some of the possible applications Sigfox offers are: Container tracking for the logistics industry, Storage safety, Smart Parking, Air Quality-Measurement, Collect and evaluate consumption data (water, gas, electricity), Smart Waste, Alarm Systems, Collecting soil data for agriculture etc.