IoT has
transformed the way communication service providers operate their business
today. This is a result of the huge amount of opportunities that IoT brings
along, not just in terms of the scale of investment for the businesses but also
the global impact it creates. Companies have started to identify the potential
of IoT and the data generated by it in reducing cost, improving supply chain
efficiencies, enhance product design and allow predictive maintenance.
Governments have also identified the transformational potential of this
technology and are looking at opportunities to reshape the industrial policies
in order to ensure that national industries maintain competitiveness and to
understand the level to which regulations need to be modified or adjusted to
address issues such as individual privacy and data security.
IoT emerged from
combination of technologies that have been undergoing continuous development in
the past decade. The combined effect of all these technologies fueled the
growth of the IoT domain. The use of the word "domain" symbolizes the
coming together of technologies and markets, which create exponential outcomes
that can be referred to as the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" by
some. Forecasts have suggested that the number of connected devices will be between
20 and 50 billion by the beginning of the next decade, with growth in business
in trillions of dollars.
The impact of
IoT will be felt across every aspect of life as we currently experience it. The
continued development of smartphones, tablets and wearable technology would allow
these devices to be the remote controls for the smart systems that will be
found in workplaces, homes and smart cars. Apart from all this, security is
also becoming more significant with the use of large number of unsecured IoT
devices.
In the
enterprise and industrial space, there is increased focus on the need for rapid
localized decision-making for devices that rely on constant information
feedback. Most of these decisions take place at the edge of the enterprise,
which is also where business interacts with the edge of the wide-area network. However
this comes with several challenges, in order to facilitate rapid
decision-making, the enterprise has to be able to identify, address,
authenticate, manage and secure a broad range of devices, many of which have
differing address mechanisms as well as communications and operating protocols.
By 2018, IoT is
expected to become mainstream for most cloud service providers (CSPs). This
would coincide with the timeframe when fully commercial market introductions of
3GPP standardized low-power wireless technologies are likely to occur. These
technologies cover a range of different use cases and can be deployed in
several different ways, either standalone or in-band using existing LTE
resource blocks that provide mobile operators with significant versatility to
address emerging IoT opportunities.
Weighted Ranking – Tier 1 CSPs by Use
Case
There are significant challenges that CSPs have to
face while serving the emerging IoT markets. First, it is not a single market
nor is it a static one which puts pressure on the CSP's network to be as
cost-effective and efficient as possible. In the case of industrial and
enterprise IoT, together with smart cities, the diversity of segments and
applications means that very few "one size fits all" solutions can be
developed and repeatedly deployed. In addition to this, MNCs expect specific
solutions deployed across all of their global operations, requiring the
solution to meet local requirements, and CSPs to handle all of the connectivity
and service interoperability challenges.
The virtual edge is a major focus for enterprise customers seeking to
understand the implications of fog computing on their operational performance,
network options and hardware requirements. In the same 2015 operator survey, discussed
their opinion on where IoT intelligence and analytics will reside within the
network (Figure 2), intelligence in the network definitely seems to be shifting
away from the center.
Overall, there
is a lot of optimism about the potential of IoT, but few CSPs have formed
concrete plans, and still fewer have implemented them. Analytics and
intelligence play a prime role going forward, both from a network operations
perspective and as a service to customers. However, the way in which this is
organized, serviced and delivered is still very fluid. 5G is very important
from a service provider perspective, as it is about seamless management of
heterogeneous networks across multiple frequencies, and obviously the efficient
handling of huge amounts of data traffic and storage. Network slicing, which
will be a key enabler of IoT, is in the early stages of implementation in LTE,
and is a core component of the 5G vision, since it enables "the many
services on one network" concept.
There is a
degree of wishful thinking going on in the mobile industry, with laggard
operators believing that they can go into IoT catch up mode at a later date,
and still win. If they do this, they will almost definitely miss the IoT window
of opportunity. One of the most significant requirements is for operators to
have a virtual core as a mechanism to accelerate IoT services. Too many of them
are still apprehensive about embracing this technology for IoT; consequently,
this will prove to be a barrier to their success. Many are trying different
approaches, including hybrid setup, and it appears now as if the two IoT
industry leaders – Vodafone and AT&T – are the only ones with a clear line
of sight.
If service
providers embrace virtualization – including the virtual core and virtual edge
– they will be able to move beyond connectivity and provide other services.
Other services could include managing the portfolios of devices, applications
and services going forward, or providing endpoint to cloud security, which most
enterprises don't have the capacity to do. Operators could also deliver
integrated analytics capability, and data management: where it is stored, how
it is tiered and what portions are transmitted. Additionally, there is the
possibility for end-to-end carrier-grade enhanced applications and tailored
capability.
