Netmore Acquires Actility: What LoRaWAN Consolidation Means for Private Networks

On 26 January 2026, Sweden's Netmore Group announced the acquisition of Actility, co-architect of the LoRaWAN specification and the company behind the ThingPark platform, including its geolocation subsidiary Abeeway [1][2]. It is the culmination, for now, of a series: since February 2024, Netmore has acquired the operators Senet and Everynet, and in 2025 it assumed commercial operations of the American Tower LoRaWAN network in Brazil and bought the smart-metering specialist Arson Metering [3][4][5][6]. By its own account, the Actility deal creates the world's largest LoRaWAN network, with more than 14 million contracted IoT devices in over 100 countries [1]. For telcos and roaming customers, this is primarily news about economies of scale. For companies that use LoRaWAN for their own applications, a different question arises: how dependent do you want to be on an operator platform whose owner, strategy and pricing can change? This article puts the consolidation into context, shows documented historical patterns and explains when your own network with an open-source LNS is the more robust architecture.

The acquisition at a glance: Netmore buys Actility and Abeeway

Netmore, backed by the Nordic infrastructure investor Polar Structure and active in 18 countries, is acquiring in Actility one of the defining companies of the LoRaWAN ecosystem [1]. Actility was founded in Paris in 2010, is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance and runs ThingPark, a multi-radio platform (LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, LTE-M) that, according to the company, powers the majority of public LoRaWAN networks, from KPN to Orange to Swisscom. The acquisition includes Abeeway, Actility's subsidiary for ultra-low-power trackers and geolocation [1]. How ThingPark differs functionally from an open-source LNS is covered in the comparison ChirpStack vs. Actility ThingPark.

The combined figures come from the press release and should be read as self-reported: more than 14 million contracted IoT devices across the Netmore networks and ThingPark-powered networks, deployments in over 100 countries, partnerships with more than 50 LoRaWAN network operators [1]. Netmore CEO Ove Anebygd speaks of a "powerhouse for scalable and reliable IoT connectivity solutions", Actility CEO Olivier Hersent wants to make LoRaWAN the "default infrastructure for massive IoT" [1]. Orange, a long-standing ThingPark partner, is quoted with a continuity commitment; no purchase price was published [1].

Important for context: there is no indication that existing customers need to change anything in the short term. The strategic question sits one level deeper, namely with control over your own network stack.

Five moves in two years: the consolidation timeline

A note on the numbers, because metrics tend to get mixed up here: the 14+ million from the acquisition press release are contracted devices, a self-reported Netmore figure [1]. The LoRa Alliance, by contrast, counted deployed end devices in December 2025 and reported 4.6 million for Actility and 3.4 million for Netmore [8]. The two metrics describe different things and cannot be compared directly.

Why the LoRaWAN operator market is consolidating

Radio network infrastructure is capital-intensive: gateways, backhaul, operations and sales pay off better the more devices run over the same infrastructure. Add the roaming footprint: whoever bundles many networks and partnerships under one roof can serve international customers with a single contract. And Netmore is backed by the infrastructure investor Polar Structure [1]; in such a setting, acquisitions can be financed systematically. In such a market, consolidation is neither good nor bad, it is market mechanics.

The counterweight matters: the LoRaWAN market is not consolidating because it is shrinking. In December 2025, the LoRa Alliance reported 125 million deployed LoRaWAN end devices worldwide, an average annual growth rate of 25 percent, and more than 170 major mobile network operators with LoRaWAN deployments [8]. What is shifting is the structure of the operator side: fewer independent providers, more negotiating power concentrated in a few large groups. For buyers of connectivity, that simply means fewer fallback options if pricing, roadmap or support quality no longer fit one day.

What consolidation means for customers of operator platforms

First, what can be cleanly documented, and it is unexciting: continuity was communicated for the Netmore acquisitions. Senet continues as its own brand [3], Orange confirms the continuation of the ThingPark partnership [1]. There is no evidence of price increases, terminations or service degradation resulting from these deals, and this article claims none.

Structurally, three points remain that any risk assessment should capture. First: your contracting partner can change through M&A, along with ownership structure, strategy and priorities; whoever signed a contract with Senet, Everynet or Actility in 2023 now faces a different group. Second: pricing, product roadmap and support model of an operator platform naturally sit with the operator, not with you. Third: a public network can end, even without an acquisition. The documented example is Objenious: Bouygues Telecom shut down its public LoRaWAN network in France at the end of 2024 and offered customers migration paths toward cellular IoT (NB-IoT, LTE-M) [11]. The customers' sensors remained, the network access did not.

A fair assessment also requires a clear distinction: the Sigfox insolvency of January 2022, followed by the takeover by UnaBiz, concerned a different LPWAN technology, not LoRaWAN [12]. It does show, however, that dependence on a single network ecosystem is a real risk in the LPWAN market as a whole. The consequence of all three points is not panic but an architecture question: how much control over gateways, network server and data do you want to hold yourself?

Operator platform or your own network: the fundamental question

When the operator platform remains the right choice

Honestly, there are use cases where an operator platform such as the Netmore/ThingPark ecosystem is and remains the right solution:

• You need wide-area or national coverage without installing your own gateways, for example for distributed assets in countries with a public LoRaWAN network.
• Your assets move across borders and need roaming with settlement, as provided by ThingPark Exchange.
• IoT is a side topic without an operations team for you, and even a managed model would still be too much ownership.
• You are a telco or operator and need OSS/BSS integration, billing systems and carrier SLAs.

When your own network with an open-source LNS pays off

The counter-model is a private LoRaWAN network: your own gateways plus a LoRaWAN network server (LNS) that you run yourself or have run for you. It typically pays off when:

• Your deployment area is defined: plant, campus, real-estate portfolio, city district. The guide Building a private LoRaWAN network describes the path.
• Data sovereignty and GDPR are hard requirements, for example with smart metering or building data.
• You want predictable costs as the device fleet grows, a flat rate instead of per-device pricing.
• Independence from operator strategy changes is an architecture goal, including the ability to switch hosting partners.
• Audit and control requirements exist: open-source software, your own device keys, your own export paths.

There are two ways to run that LNS: self-hosting, or having ChirpStack run as a managed service, with a dedicated instance, backups and updates from German data centers.

For the DACH region there is an additional structural point: a nationwide public LoRaWAN network like in the Netherlands, Belgium or Switzerland does not exist in Germany. German deployments, from municipal utilities to smart metering to building automation, are predominantly private networks anyway. The fundamental decision here is therefore less often between public and private network, and more often between a third-party platform in the data path and a self-controlled stack. What that dependence looks like with a US hyperscaler is analyzed in AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN Alternative.

ChirpStack: the open-source LNS as a sovereignty building block

The technical basis for the counter-model is an open-source LNS. ChirpStack is MIT-licensed, the source code is fully available on GitHub, and the project is actively maintained: the current stable version v4.19.0 was released on 9 July 2026, including per-tenant DevAddr ranges, a new class_b_schedule_advance configuration option and improved downlink gateway selection [9]. Since version 4, network server and application server have been merged into a unified binary written in Rust; add the Gateway Bridge, PostgreSQL (or SQLite for edge setups), Redis and MQTT. LoRaWAN 1.0.x and 1.1 as well as device classes A, B and C are supported, multi-tenancy included [10].

For the consolidation question, the governance level matters most: nobody can "acquire" MIT-licensed software. The code can be forked, the instance is portable, and device keys, routing and data belong to whoever runs the LNS. A provider change then only affects the hosting contract, not the stack. How ChirpStack compares against the other large open-source ecosystem is shown in ChirpStack vs. The Things Stack.

Remarkably, the LoRa Alliance is addressing the portability question itself: its 3-year roadmap presented on 1 June 2026 explicitly includes features for 2026 that will make it easier to migrate device fleets between different LoRaWAN networks, plus end-device capabilities discovery and walk-by/drive-by reading. For 2027, zero-touch onboarding and the standardization of LNS interfaces are on the plan, for 2028 gateway certification and a standard application data format [7]. Switchability is thus turning from a negotiating argument into a design requirement of the standard. Anyone choosing an architecture today should measure it against that.

Decision matrix: dependence vs. control

How much self-operation is realistic depends on your team; the trade-off between self-hosting and managed operations is covered in depth in ChirpStack Hosting: Managed vs. Self-Hosted.

GDPR, Data Act, NIS2: the compliance view in brief

LoRaWAN payload data can be personal data, for example with smart metering, presence sensing or tracking. Your own LNS in a German data center simplifies the GDPR side: a clear processor, a data processing agreement, no third-country transfer in the standard path. With operator platforms, the review should cover where LNS and data actually run and what happens contractually to data processing and commitments in the event of a change of ownership. In parallel, the EU Data Act raises the requirements for data access and portability for connected products; the details, including the 12 September 2026 deadline, are covered in The EU Data Act and LoRaWAN. For entities within the NIS2 scope, such as energy suppliers, dependency and supply-chain assessment is part of risk management; an operator change through M&A is a classic trigger for such a review. This section is a technical and organizational classification, not legal advice; binding assessments belong with your data protection and legal counsel.

chirphost: your own LoRaWAN network without DevOps overhead

If you choose the control side of the matrix without running PostgreSQL, MQTT brokers, updates and monitoring yourself, chirphost provides a dedicated ChirpStack instance as a managed service: 8 regions to choose from, in Germany with ISO 27001 and BSI C5 certified data centers, MQTT and REST API, codec functions, InfluxDB and ThingsBoard integration, automatic backups and updates. The plans: Startup from €99.90/month, Business from €199.90/month (both DE region, plus VAT), Enterprise on request. All plans include unlimited devices and gateways (with recommended limits per plan), can be cancelled monthly and have no setup fee; the trial is free for 7 days (credit card required). The overview of ChirpStack hosting plans shows which plan fits which fleet size.

The honest frame around it: even with chirphost you are not "completely independent". The dependence shifts to a monthly cancellable hosting contract, while software, device keys and data remain portable, via export or by moving the instance. And chirphost is not the right model for everyone: if you need national coverage without your own gateways, global roaming with settlement or telco OSS/BSS, you are better served by an operator platform; for hobby projects with a few sensors, The Things Network's community network is often enough.

Conclusion

The Netmore-Actility acquisition is not an alarm signal, but it is a signal: the LoRaWAN operator market is reordering itself in big steps, and five transactions in two years speak clearly [1][3][4][5][6]. For telco use cases, a stronger partner with a larger footprint is emerging. For companies that use LoRaWAN as a tool for their own applications, the trade-off keeps shifting toward control: a private network with an open-source LNS turns ownership changes on the operator side into a footnote, because stack, keys and data stay with you. The fact that the LoRa Alliance is making migration between networks a standard feature confirms this direction [7]. The decision matrix above provides the criteria; if you want to examine your own path, start with the comparison ChirpStack vs. Actility ThingPark and the guide Building a private LoRaWAN network.

Netmore, Actility, ThingPark, Abeeway, Senet, Everynet, American Tower, Arson Metering, Objenious, Sigfox, UnaBiz, ChirpStack and The Things Network are trademarks of their respective owners. This article is not affiliated with the companies named; references serve objective classification only.

Sources

1. Actility: Netmore Group Acquires Actility (26 Jan 2026)
2. Netmore Group: Netmore Acquires Actility to Lead Global Transformation of Massive IoT (26 Jan 2026)
3. Netmore Group: Expansion into North America, acquisition of LoRaWAN operator Senet (6 Feb 2024)
4. Netmore Group: Acquisition of LoRaWAN operator Everynet (30 Oct 2024)
5. Netmore Group: Netmore assumes commercial operations of the American Tower LoRaWAN network in Brazil (15 Sep 2025)
6. Netmore Group: Acquisition of Arson Metering, water and gas utilities (22 Sep 2025)
7. LoRa Alliance: 3-Year Roadmap for Scaling LoRaWAN Globally (1 Jun 2026)
8. LoRa Alliance: 125 Million LoRaWAN End Devices Deployed Globally (10 Dec 2025)
9. ChirpStack: GitHub releases, v4.19.0 of 9 Jul 2026 (MIT license)
10. ChirpStack: official website and documentation (architecture, integrations)
11. Objenious: Shutdown of the LoRaWAN network (network end December 2024)
12. IoT Tech News: Sigfox enters insolvency proceedings (January 2022)