Shape the future with the Internet of Things

According to experts1, the Internet of Things (IoT) will connect at least 20 billion devices by 2020, generating huge data traffic waiting to be analysed. Device manufacturers are expected to add $14.2 trillion2 to the global market by 2030 as they embrace the Industrial IoT.  

IoT-enabled devices will place huge dependencies on an organisation’s network infrastructure, requiring a significant expansion in capacity. It’s going to stress the way the network functions, and create a lot of new entities to manage the data exchange. The always-on connectivity, computing capacity and voluminous data streams will drive demand for network endpoints to support device data and improve performance.

Can your business network manage the massive data flows that the IoT will generate as we approach this Network of Everything?

IoT will be the biggest disruption to the communications infrastructure.

The IoT networks and the associated services associated will become more pervasive and relevant with more data.  The network will grow continuously, ingesting the data as the network itself becomes the enabler or the ‘Network of Everything’.

This ‘Network of Everything’ will reduce the connected world into a data set that can be studied, modelled and manipulated with the power of Artificial Intelligence to unlock the value of the data. The right network, platforms, and services are therefore critical to support the massive growth of IoT. In the world of IoT, the network must come first.

This enhanced network will take time to build, arriving in some places earlier than others. For example, a fast emerging network standard is the Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT). NB-IoT delivers optimised, low-bandwidth for IoT applications that require reliable, indoor penetration and highly efficient power usage.

IoT will impact every industry as intelligent devices and sensors, including many non-smart objects, begin to send and receive data, offering a rich repository of operational and customer insights.

By any measure, the increase in data traffic will be dramatic. Some early IoT adopters report generating one petabyte of data a month. For example, Uber and Grab are expanding their data centre capacity to keep up with astronomical volumes of data. The rich data insights generated from their drivers’ smartphones are helping these companies disrupt the transportation industry by targeting new customer segments, lower costs and higher routing efficiency.

The IoT is only the beginning of a massive network infrastructure overhaul. The expected surge in traffic flows will also come from other networks and emerging technologies such as virtual reality and machine learning.

New types of data centres in new places, optimised around machine-to-machine (M2M) workloads will emerge. Some experts believe companies will deploy unmanned facilities closer to the network edge so software and analytics can make real-time adjustments to data centre configuration as data volumes grow. Network congestion will be resolved through a variety of technologies including software defined network architectures.

With billions of connected devices, addressing latency will be critical as content moves closer to the edge of the network. The underlying infrastructure has to accommodate highly localised data delivery if connected devices are to be useful to consumers.

In many countries, IoT will require improving access into the backhaul fibre that connects the network edge to Internet backbones. They will have to wire new buildings and link wireless infrastructure or risk insufficient mobile densification--a layer of small cells, spanning the spectrum (including Wi-Fi and cellular) and interworking with the broader telecom network.

Network service providers including telecom operators will offer ‘intelligence’ services to help enterprises glean insights from their IoT data. They will harvest and analyse the data while allowing companies to refine results with their own policies and rules. Additionally, taking non-smart devices and adding an intelligence layer will also unlock tremendous value for many organisations.

IoT offers enterprises a compelling case for new product ideas and applications that could serve millions of customers by providing real-time insights that help enterprises capture, understand and make more effective use of device data. But it will also bring new challenges and expectations.

The future will belong to enterprises that seize the opportunity to tap into a converged, unified network that will enable remote management, monitoring and safeguarding of all devices, software and data to provide IT departments with in-depth intelligence to make smarter decisions.

To learn more about how our IoT-ready network will enable greater adoption of IoT for your organisation or your customers, please speak to our IoT advisor.

1 Gartner: Leading the IoT, 2017

2 Accenture: Winning with the industrial internet of things