Belgium’s Proximus is the latest European operator to back LoRa (Long Range, Low Power) technology for an Internet of Things (IoT) network.

It will be the first operator in Belgium to start deploying a wireless network based on LoRa  technology for connecting devices with the internet. It aims to roll out a network covering Belgium and Luxembourg.

“The unique thing about this technology is that, besides working over long distances, energy consumption is very low, which means that the devices can operate autonomously for years on end,” the company said in a statement.

“The LoRa network rounds out Proximus’ machine-to-machine offering over its fixed and mobile network… the possibilities are endless. Proximus is already testing very specific applications,”  it added.

Last month, KPN said it plans to deploy LoRa in the Netherlands before the end of this year. Along with Orange and Swisscom, KPN is an investor in LoRa-based IoT firm Actility.

Proximus also wants to encourage developers and other interested companies to develop new services and solutions that use the network.

LoRa technology has a capacity of between 1 Kb/s to 50 Kb/s, which means that it can function with low frequencies and network capacity can be easily extended to meet future market requirements.

The network will be available in major cities in Belgium before the end of this year and next year the network will be rolled out across the rest of Belgium and Luxembourg.

Since January 2015, Proximus has been part of the LoRa Alliance, the aim of which is to develop a worldwide standard for networks that operate on low frequency and to ensure interoperability between operators.