Confused regarding the working of LoRa full gateway

1

Hello everyone,
I am kind of new to LoRa technology and need help in understanding the working of gateways.

I was reading through the datasheet of SX1301. It says that the gateway has 8 demodulators in it and hence can only decode 8 messages simultaneously.

A full gateway can receive transmissions on 8 channels. This means there can be a maximum of 8 (channels) times 6 (SFs) means 48 receptions simultaneously, but out of those 48 receptions, 40 receptions will be dropped by the packet arbitrator MCU based on priority rules as there are only 8 demodulators.

My question is if only 8 packets can be decoded simultaneously, what is the use of 8 channels in the gateway?

Kindly help me out here.

2

If every node use the same channel you will have a lot of collision. By spreading the communication on 8 different channel you greatly reduce collision issue. You can have 8 nodes using the same SF on different channel without packet loss.