The ZigBee Alliance has announced the launch of the JupiterMesh Neighborhood Area Network (NAN), a low-power Industrial IoT (IIoT) mesh protocol aimed at field area communications for utilities and smart cities. It sounds very similar to the Wi-SUN Alliance’s Field Area Network (FAN), and sees the ZigBee Alliance expand beyond its short-range core market. By the looks of things, JupiterMesh uses parts of the IEEE 802.15.4g standard used by the Wi-SUN Alliance, as well as IEEE 802.15.4e – as well as the IETF’s Ipv6, 6LoWPAN, UDP, TCP, RPL, and CoAP protocols. Cumulatively, the spec covers the first four layers of the OSI model, and looks to be fairly all-encompassing, and includes channel-hopping, multi-band operation, and encryption. The launch was announced…