  As LoRaWAN networks are actively being deployed in the field, it is important
to comprehend the limitations of this Low Power Wide Area Network technology.
Previous work has raised questions in terms of the scalability and capacity of
LoRaWAN networks as the number of end devices grows to hundreds or thousands
per gateway. Some works have modeled LoRaWAN networks as pure ALOHA networks,
which fails to capture important characteristics such as the capture effect and
the effects of interference. Other works provide a more comprehensive model by
relying on empirical and stochastic techniques. This work uses a different
approach where a LoRa error model is constructed from extensive complex
baseband bit error rate simulations and used as an interference model. The
error model is combined with the LoRaWAN MAC protocol in an ns-3 module that
enables to study multi channel, multi spreading factor, multi gateway,
bi-directional LoRaWAN networks with thousands of end devices. Using the
lorawan ns-3 module, a scalability analysis of LoRaWAN shows the detrimental
impact of downstream traffic on the delivery ratio of confirmed upstream
traffic. The analysis shows that increasing gateway density can ameliorate but
not eliminate this effect, as stringent duty cycle requirements for gateways
continue to limit downstream opportunities.
