Part of why LoRaWAN (like TTN & Helium) have better RF performance than meshtastic (and other lowcost LoRa meshes) is that LoRaWAN makes use of actual gateway chips which enable them to listen to 8 channels at once while meshtastic only uses one static channel at a time.

LoRaWAN gateways can then use intelligent scheduling modes (they call it device classes) to make super efficient use of the 8 channels and possible hop around noise channels too.

https://www.semtech.com/products/wireless-rf/lora-core/sx1303

So the problems with the TTN is basically is a SaaS capitalist play. You buy a gateway, connect it to TTN then TTN sells access back to you and your community for your own hardware

They do give a free tier and act open but your hardware and data is THEIR profit center. Lame.

It's got a lot of network coverage in the EU, but never really took off in the US.

In practice the network in the EU is viable, the one in the US isn't.

https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/map

Demonstration of the first login and talk of PineDio for "off-grid" communication potential here:

#PineDio #Pine64 #Radio #SDR #LoRa #communication #IoT #TTN #TheThingsNetwork #Chirpstack

https://youtu.be/bustSeT2QEg

Next: Take a look at Lup Yuen Lee's awesome extensive (helpful + pictures!) guide to getting started here: #Pinedio #LoRa #Mesh #TTN #TheThingsNetwork #Communication #Radio

https://lupyuen.github.io/articles/gateway?5#install-pinedio-gateway