Lo.Ra and Lo.RaWan: Why is a gateway needed?

Question

As I was looking information regarding Lo.Ra and Lo.RaWAN over these links:

• http://www.instructables.com/id/Introducing-LoRa-/
• https://www.link-labs.com/blog/what-is-lora
• https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Lora-and-LoraWan
• https://www.link-labs.com/blog/what-is-loraw

I also have looked many tutorial sites on how to setup a Lo.Ra gateway:

• https://www.hackster.io/ChrisSamuelson/lora-raspberry-pi-single-channel-gateway-cheap-d57d36
• https://electronza.com/raspberry-pi-cheap-lora-gateway/

But all these material made me quite nervous and generated me these questions:

• Why a Lo.Ra gateway is needed?
• Why is needed to get registered in sites like: https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/

I solely cannot understand their purpose of having a registered gateway, can't I have "something" that receives the data and sends them over ip-based networks eg. via ethernet cable without the need of registration in https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/ ?

Answer 1

can't I have "something" that receives the data and sends them over ip-based networks?

Yes you can and that's called a gateway.

https://www.lora-alliance.org/technology

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

These services like Things Network and Loriot.io provide software for the gateways, cloud servers (a backend) and API's. You don't need to use them, they just make your life easier, and I believe most services that The things network provide are free.