WPAN with IP – 6LoWPAN

In an effort to bring IP addressability to the smallest and most resource-constrained devices, the concept of 6LoWPAN was formed in 2005. A working group formalized the design in the IETF under the specification RFC 4944 (request for comment) and later updated with RFC 6282 to address header compression and RFC 6775 for neighbor discovery. The consortium is closed, however, the standard is open for anyone to use and implement. 6LoWPAN is an acronym that stands for IPV6 over low power WPANs. The intent is for IP networking over low-power RF communication systems for devices that are power and space constrained and do not need high bandwidth networking services. The protocol can be used with other WPAN communications such as 802.15.4 as well as Bluetooth, sub-1 GHz RF protocols, and power line controller (PLC). The principal advantage of 6LoWPAN is that the simplest of sensors can have IP addressability and act as a network citizen over 3G/4G/LTE/Wi-Fi/Ethernet routers. A secondary effect is that IPV6 provides significant theoretical addressability of 2128 or 3.4x1038 unique addresses. This would sufficiently cover the estimates of 50 billion internet-connected devices by 2020 and continue to cover those devices well beyond that. Therefore, IPV6 is well-suited for IoT growth.