A low-power wide area network supports IP communication between a wireless device and an IP application node. The LPWAN server provides the application node's IP address and a compression/decompression protocol to the device, which applies the protocol (i) to generate a compressed uplink IP header for wireless transmission to LPWAN radio gateway(s), where the compressed IP header is subsequently decompressed to form an uplink IP packet for transmission to the application node and (ii) to decompress a compressed downlink IP header received from a radio gateway, where the compressed IP header was generated from an uncompressed downlink IP header from the IP application node. The device can also segment large uplink IP packets and reassemble large downlink IP packets. In a LoRaWAN network, the join server facilitates arriving at a common compression/decompression protocol and assigns an IP address to the device to enable IP communication with an IP application client.