The Internet of Things (IoT) has quickly emerged as a strategic transformation agent for all industries as it blends the physical and digital worlds. By connecting things and providing "smartness" to them, new value is created across a number of sectors in the Networked Society.
Ericsson's latest Mobility Report predicts that we are heading for an IoT-dominated world by the end of 2018. That's less than two years from now! So for the first time ever, the mobile phone will no longer be the most common and most intimate device we will use to get ourselves connected to the Internet -- it will be our wearables, cars, home appliances, cities, industries, you name it! And in five years, we expect 28 billion connected devices around the world, with more than half being IoT devices.
As things are connected, new opportunities arise for service providers, industries, cities and enterprises whereby new solutions are developed that change the world we live in and the way we interact with it.
A new generation of network technologies for IoT
Whether in the enterprise or consumer context, IoT starts with connectivity. There are already more than 400 million cellular IoT devices, but that is just the beginning. A wide range of new technologies are emerging that enable new value and capabilities for connecting the next new "thing" to a new generation of analytics and applications.
A new wave of connectivity innovations in LTE, LPWA and the emergence of 5G are bringing new capabilities and cost/performance options tailored to specific devices and applications. These technologies bring new capabilities to bear while significantly lowering cost to bring the next thing "online."
To ensure success, service providers must get connectivity right early in the game so they can build a successful IoT business on top of it. The "Massive IoT" market is a growth area dominated by low-cost, low-bandwidth sensor-based devices. This segment is served by a new generation of highly cost efficient GSM and LTE cellular technologies known as Category M1 and NB-IoT, whereby the trusted and secure GSM and LTE connections of today are expanded for use by millions of potential IoT applications.
In my 5G blog published on Light Reading, I talked about the emergence of 5G and how it is bringing a new set of technologies that enable high-bandwidth, low-latency real-time IoT applications. This will be fundamental to the "Critical IoT" market, for example, enabling an autonomous car to be able to apply its brakes in a couple of centimeters instead of a couple of meters.
When considering which technology to pick for any IoT implementation, there are pros and cons of capability, security, cost and longevity of the solutions that must all be taken into account: Bridging that new connection to a new generation of cloud and analytics technologies that drive advanced business and operational transformation is key to harnessing the full potential of IoT.
With connectivity as a foundation, communications service providers are in a prime position to benefit from the IoT evolution and they will need a long-term vision to evolve their networks while having a clear view of where else to position themselves along the value chain to capture future IoT market opportunities.
The IoT ecosystem is still nascent, fragmented and complex, with myriad established as well as emerging players from all quarters of the ICT landscape. For service providers and enterprises alike, it's essential to have an IoT transformation partner that can help them navigate the complexity, that can bring not only connectivity technology, but also platforms and components such as analytics and monetization, and expertise in vertical industries -- with an active ecosystem role. They need a partner they can trust and work with, whatever their IoT aspirations.
Above is the abstract from the published article in the "Internet of Things World News " on 24 October 2016. To read the full article, please visit here.