[selvakn]

LoRa is.. But LoRaWAN is an open standard, governed by LoRa Alliance.

[hlieberman]

Using the LoRa PHY. Not much of an open standard at that point....

[dillonmckay]

So, in the article, I saw the picture of a ‘base station’...where can I find more info about the towers (locations, hardware)?

Does a single company own/control all the towers?

[m3at]

Are you speaking about the gateway? If so you can have more info here:

https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/gateways/

[htdvisser]

These base stations (we call them gateways) are owned and operated by individuals, communities or companies. The gateways demodulate transmissions and forward them to The Things Network's public community network.

There are currently over 8000 of these gateways worldwide (see also the map on https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/map).

[amadeusw]

What is the incentive for a hobbyist to set up and maintain a gateway, given that the protocol is not open?

[abricot]

Most probably don't want to have a say in the protocol specifications, they just want to use the protocol and spectrum.