Qualcomm hasn’t really been at the center of the recent debates over LPWAN (low power wide area network) standards despite its obvious support for the main cellular candidate, NB-IoT. It appears to have been quite content to bide its time and then, at the crucial moment, tackle the market on the back of its formidable R&D expertise and solid brand recognition. That moment has come with the finalization of new standards for LTE in LPWA networks, as part of Release 13. These include two low power, low data rate modem specifications, Cat-M1 (formerly called Cat-0 or LTE-MTC) and NB-IoT. Consequently, the announcement that it is now targeting battery-powered IoT devices with its MDM9207-1 chipset isn’t surprising. Qualcomm says the unit…