LTE and LoRa in the 2.
4 GHz Band:
Adjacent Channel Interference Issues
Ladislav Polak and Jiri Milos
Department of Radio Electronics, SIX Research Center
Brno University of Technology (BUT)
Brno, Czech Republic
{polakl, milos}@feec.vutbr.cz
Abstract—In 2017, the Semtech company has released the
SX1281 transceiver with the aim to provide Long-Range (LoRa)
wireless data link in the 2.4 GHz Industrial, Scientific and
Medical (ISM) radio frequency (RF) band. In the future, massive
utilization of a LoRa-based technology can cause an origin of
new unwanted coexistence scenarios in this license-free RF band.
This paper focuses on the adjacent channel interference issues
that can occur between Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LoRa
systems in the 2.4 GHz band. The influence of LoRa signal
on the LTE one is explored on physical (PHY) layer level.
An automated laboratory measurement setup is employed to
measure and calculate protection ratio for different LTE system
configurations. Results show that LoRa with different system
parameters influences the performance of LTE in different way.
Index Terms—LTE, LoRa, LPWAN, IoT, 5G, ISM band,
RF measurement, coexistence, interference
I. I NTRODUCTION
Nowadays, utilization of Low Power Wide Area Networks
(LPWANs) in different application fields is rapidly increasing
[1]. The LPWA-based technologies, like Long-Range (LoRa)
or SigFox, offer to realize reliable long-range, low data rate
communication link between low power devices, dominantly
in the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) sub-1 GHz radio
frequency (RF) bands. In the future, they can complement
mobile broadband networks ensuring high coverage, primarily
based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology [2].
In recent years, LoRa [3] is one of the most popular LPWAN
technologies. It was introduced by company Semtech in 2012
as a technology enabling to realize long-range communication
link at low received power in the sub-1 GHz ISM bands. Its
physical (PHY) layer is characterized by code rate, spreading
factor and channel bandwidth, in this work marked as CR,
SF and BLoRa , respectively. The CR for LoRa payload can
be CR = 4/(4 + n), where n ∈ {1, 2, 3, 4}. The value of SF
is varied between 6 and 12, while in most cases BLoRa can
be {125, 250, 500} kHz. Details about these parameters can
be found in [3]. LoRa employs chirp spread spectrum (CSS)
modulation to reduce influences of multipath propagation and
interferences for long-range transmission. Furthermore, LoRa
has a special system configuration allowing to use GFSK
modulation at BLoRa =150 kHz with 50 kbps data rate.
This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
(MEYS) of the Czech Republic project no. LTC18021 (FEWERCON) and by
the BUT project no. FEKT-S-17-4426.
978-1-7281-6468-7/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE
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In 2017, the Semtech company has released the SX12811
transceiver that pushes LoRa into the 2.4 GHz ISM bands. The
range of BLoRa values has been extended, this result in higher
number of use cases for LoRa [4]. Due to this, coexistence
issues between LoRa and other wireless networks will arise.
Topicality of the study of coexistence between different
wireless communication systems is reflected by numerous
research papers [5]–[11]. In this paper, we focus on the
works that deal with the coexistence between LTE and other
systems [12]–[18]. Coexistence of LTE and Digital Video
Broadcasting–Terrestrial (DVB-T/T2) systems were studied in
[12] and [13]. The results revealed that, depending on the
considered coexistence scenarios (in-band, adjacent channel),
the LTE signal with different parameters has different level of
resistance to interference. Performance of the LTE-Downlink
and Uplink (LTE-DL and LTE-UL) transmission influenced
by ZigBee in the 2.4 GHz band was explored in [14]. At
the same signal bandwidth for both systems, simulation-based
analysis showed that LTE has higher resistance against ZigBee
interferences than in the case ZigBee vs. LTE. Coexistence
scenarios for LTE vs. Wi-Fi networks were investigated in
[15]–[18]. It was shown that the performance of LTE is mainly
depending on the IEEE 802.11 technology used by Wi-Fi.
Contribution: Performance of the LTE system influenced
by LoRa on physical (PHY) layer level is explored. The
robustness of LTE to the interfering LoRa signal is investigated
for different SF and BLoRa values at different distances of
adjacent channels, defined by the width of guard band (GB).
To the best of authors’ knowledge, such a study has not been
reported so far.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Coexistence
scenario between LTE and LoRa in the 2.4 GHz ISM band
is defined in Section II. The measurement setup and the
procedure to measure protection ratios for LTE system are in-
troduced in Section III. Evaluation of the obtained results and
conclusion are presented in Sections IV and V, respectively.
II. C OEXISTENCE OF LTE AND L O R A
The 2.4 GHz RF band is utilized by different wireless
communication systems, like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or ZigBee [19].
In the future, a more massive presence of the LTE system is
assumed in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz ISM license-free RF bands.
1 https://www.semtech.com/products/wireless-rf/24-ghz-transceivers
 LTE B40 (TD 2300) 2.4 GHz ISM Band Personal Computer
with MATLAB
Wi-Fi Switch

LoRa
LTE-Downlink Guard Band Netgear GS108T Ethernet Cable
Bluetooth
LTE-Uplink R&S FSP3
ZigBee 1 2 3 4

(2.300 ÷ 2.400) GHz (2.401 ÷ 2.495) GHz R&S SMU200A

LTE
Fig. 1: Possible adjacent RF channel interference between A

LoRa
LTE and LoRa in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. B
A B Combiner/ R&S FSQ with LTE Module
Splitter

Coax Cable
From this point of view, band B40 allocated for LTE can
cause unwanted adjacent channel interferences for systems
utilizing the 2.4 GHz ISM band due to short GB distance [18]. Fig. 2: Block diagram of the automated measurement setup to
Currently, band B40 (from 2.3 GHz up to 2.4 GHz) is used by measure coexistence between LTE and LoRa on PHY level.
countries like China, India or Australia2 .
LTE and LoRa systems configured for downlink (DL) and TABLE I: Parameters of LTE and LoRa systems considered
uplink (UL) transmission, respectively, are considered in this in this work
work. According to Fig. 1, adjacent coexistence scenarios are
Parameters LTE LoRa
assumed. The GB between both RF channels is 1 MHz, which Code Rate 1/3 4/5
in some cases [18] can not sufficiently suppress the unwanted Modulation Scheme OFDMAa CSSb
Inner Modulation QPSK
interaction of adjacent RF signals. The power level of RF 16QAM
GFSK
signals as well as channel bandwidths has a direct impact on (BLoRa =150 kHz)
64QAM
the interfered system. In this work, a GB with a width from Spreading Factor (SF) - 7, 10
Bandwidth [MHz] 1.4, 5, 10, 20 0.125, 0.5
1 MHz up to 3 MHz is assumed. Thereby, the performance of Transmission Direction Download Uplink
LTE interfered by a LoRa signal, leaking into adjacent channel, a Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access
b Chirp Spread Spectrum
at different values of a GB is explored.

III. M EASUREMENT S ETUP AND

M EASUREMENT M ETHODOLOGY
In this section, a laboratory measurement setup (see Fig. 2)
used to measure and calculate protection ratio for various LTE
system configurations is presented. The proposed configuration
is automated that means less time needed for measurement. Its
basic concept as well as the adopted measurement methodol-
ogy [8] is based on our previous works [17]–[19].
The LTE RF signal, according to system parameters pre-
sented in Table I, is generated in the Rohde&Schwarz (R&S)
SMU200A arbitrary signal generator. The working frequency
of the LTE RF signal, defined only with the LTE channel
bandwidth (BLTE ), is fixed during the measurement.
Direct generation of the LoRa RF signal by the R&S
SMU200A device is not possible due to missing support of this
system. Hence, according to [20], the LoRa ARB waveform
files from Semtech, created for testing purposes, are used.
They are simply loaded into the R&S SMU200A device. In
the next step, a waveform defined by LoRa system parameters
is RF modulated. The carrier frequency of the LoRa signal,
depending on the values of channel bandwidths (BLoRa ), is
firstly set to fulfill condition GB=1 MHz. In the next stages of
measurement, it is changed according to the considered values
of GB. Finally, the LTE and LoRa RF signals are combined
and splitted (the additional loss is ≈ 8 dB) for further analysis.
The R&S FSP3 spectrum analyzer is used to measure the
power levels of both RF signals in the considered channel
bandwidths.
2 https://www.frequencycheck.com/bands/lte-band-40-td-2300
The power level of the LTE signal (C), based on [18], is set
to achieve -60 dBm average receive power at the input of the
R&S FSQ device. The value of C is constant for all mea-
surements. The power of the LoRa signal (I) at the beginning
of each measurement is set to -90 dBm. This value is then
gradually increasing until a threshold, where the LTE signal
is degraded (monitored by R&S FSQ spectrum analyzer with
LTE module). Under the term ”the LTE signal is degraded” we
means that the required error vector magnitude (EVM) limits
for LTE inner modulations (QPSK, 16QAM and 64QAM) are
exceeded [17]. At this point [18], the protection ratio for the
considered LTE system configuration is calculated in the form
of C/I = C − I. After that, the measurement is repeated for
other GB values and LTE/LoRa system configurations.
As it was mentioned, the whole measurement setup is
automated due to speed up the measurement and evaluation
process. All the used R&S devices are connected with a
personal computer (PC) via switch Netgear GS108T. A custom
created MATLAB program using specified toolboxes [17],
installed on PC, is employed for the remote control of R&S
devices (set of system parameters, signal levels, etc.). During
the measurement, data are continuously collected and saved in
the PC. Such a concept ensures they offline processing. More
details can be found in [17].
IV. R ESULTS
PHY-based performance evaluation of the LTE system inter-
fered by LoRa at various GB values is presented in this section.
LoRa signals with three different combinations of BLoRa and
SF values are employed.

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 (a) LTE: QPSK
Fig. 3: C/I requirements for LTE signal with BLTE = 1.4 MHz and different M-QAM inner modulations.
(a) LTE: QPSK
Fig. 4: C/I requirements for LTE signal with BLTE = 10 MHz and different M-QAM inner modulations.
Moreover, LoRa using GFSK modulation at BLoRa =150 kHz
is also considered is some cases. The protection ratios are
calculated for different LTE signal configurations.
C/I requirements for the LTE signal using different M-
QAM modulations at BLTE =1.4 MHz are plotted in Fig. 3
from (a) to (c). It is visible that the basic trend of C/I ratios,
independently on the system configurations of LoRa, is the
same in all cases, i.e the higher is the width of GB, the lower
is the C/I ratio. Next, M-QAM modulations with higher M-
order have lower resistance against the interferences. These
results meet with the outputs of similar works, presented
previously [17], [18]. The highest influence on the LTE signal
with BLTE = 1.4 MHz was observed at the LoRa signal using
configuration BLoRa =500 kHz @ SF=7. Among the used LoRa
signal waveforms, considered in this work, this one has the
highest data rate. In the case of the remaining LoRa signals,
differences between the C/I values are negligible.
Performance of the interfered LTE system using signal
bandwidth of 10 MHz is depicted in Fig. 4 from (a) to (c).
Contrast to previous case, dependence of C/I on GB has not
linear character. For the cases when GB∈ <1,2>, the LTE
system requires high protection ratios. On the other hand, the
C/I ratios are rapidly decreasing for GB>2. Resilience of LTE
to LoRa signal using BLoRa =125 kHz @ SF=10 (LoRa signal
with low data rate) is the lowest. The LTE signal with wider
bandwidth is more sensitive to interferences caused by LoRa.
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(b) LTE: 16QAM (c) LTE: 64QAM
(b) LTE: 16QAM (c) LTE: 64QAM
Figure 5 shows the influence of LoRa on LTE using 16QAM
and 64QAM at BLTE = 20 MHz. The obtained curves show
similar trend as it was observed at BLTE =1.4 MHz, but the C/I
values are closer to that ones measured at BLTE =10 MHz. It can
be noticed that the immunity of LTE against the LoRa signal
with configuration BLoRa =125 kHz @ SF=10 is more united
than in the case of LoRa using BLoRa =500 kHz @ SF=10.
As a last case, the robustness of LTE to the interfering
LoRa signal using GFSK modulation at BLoRa =150 kHz was
investigated. Results, presented in Fig. 6, were obtained for
LTE using 16QAM and 64QAM at signal bandwidths of
1.4 MHz and 5 MHz. Compared to previous cases, LoRa with
this special configuration has high influence on the LTE signal
having a narrow bandwidth (BLTE =1.4 MHz). On the other
hand, sensitivity of the LTE system at BLTE =5 MHz is rapidly
decreasing for GB with a width higher than 1 MHz.
V. C ONCLUSION
This short paper focused on the adjacent channel interfer-
ence issues that can occur at the coexistence of LTE and
LoRa systems in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. Such a situation is
illustrated in Fig. 7.
The measurement results showed that LoRa with different
system configurations influences the performance of LTE by
different way. In many cases, it was observed that up to
GB=2.5 MHz, the OFDMA-based LTE system is sensitive
to narrowband interferences caused by the CSS-based LoRa
system.
 RBW 2 MHz Marker 1 ( Tl ]
* VBW 300 kHz -34.67 dBm
Ref -20 dBm Att 5 dB * SWT 600 ms 2.411974359 GHz

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-50

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-70 "'

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-110
Fig. 5: C/I requirements for LTE signal with 16QAM and -120

64QAM inner modulations at BLTE = 20 MHz. Center 2.403717949 GHz 8 MHz/ Span 80 MHz

Fig. 7: LTE (RF spectra on the left side) and LoRa (RF spectra
on the right side) transmission in the 2.4 GHz ISM band.

[6] L. Klozar, L. Polak, O. Kaller, and J. Prokopec, ”Effect of Co-Existence

Fig. 6: Influence of the LoRa signal using GFSK and
BLoRa = 150 kHz on the performance of LTE with different
system configurations.
Work presented in this paper can be extended by perfor-
mance analysis of LTE, when the interfering LoRa signal
uses bandwidth3 of {400, 800, 1600} kHz and SF values varied
from 5 to 12. Moreover, the outputs of laboratory measure-
ments should be extended with measurements conducted in
real conditions. However, such plans, as well as performance
study of LoRa interfered by LTE, are a subject of further
research.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Michal Potocnak for his
help with the laboratory measurements.
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3 The chirp uses the entire bandwidth

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