Focusing on the theme of field based technologies; I took opportunity to attend an event hosted by the IET Berkshire network. Dr.Abhaya Sumanasena Managing consultant at Real Wireless and Martin Wren-Hilton Director of Mobile Innovation at TalkTalk discussed how NB IoT was emerging as the chosen technology by cellular operators to provide services within the Unlicensed spectrum. Mystic Meg was pictured - Perhaps demonstrating that the transition to 5G can have many winners !
Particularly, NB IoT was discussed against Lora and SigFox networks. Where, whilst Lora and SigFox may have more use cases, NB IoT is likely to become the preferred choice for carrier grade networks to play within the Low Power Wan (LPWA) arena. Uplink and downlink speeds were discussed for field based devices, and whilst manufactures are likely to have a readymade consumer base with NB IoT for their devices with carrier networks, their is a need to ensure that QoS and smart features are satisfying consumer needs, else, the other contenders like Zigbee, Lora and SigFox might continue to capture the market base.
Other factors that affect economies of scale for NB IoT were discussed, such as bandwidth per message, power consumption, trade-off between data rates and signal coding, cost per connection, device access charges, chipset development and base station requirements (number of registered devices). This brought about the need to mention Service Provider Vs Self Service model, and how an entire ecosystem can be created based off each technology type, including shared services. Security was also mentioned and it too could be the reason why one technology might win over another, concepts such as cellular authentication, hardware encryption, radio and transport encryption were mentioned. The strongest use case will be IoT Payments - can the LPWA network make it easier for payment aggregators to achieve the millisecond transaction rate required ? and how can this be guaranteed for sensor based IoT devices.
The events discussions were more focused around how licensed and unlicensed spectrum of radio technology can be best provided. The race is already started, with the next Olympics likely to be the first main venue to offer 5G services, after which, its the needs of consumerisation and commercialisation of different fields which is likely to fuel IoT specialisations/needs across different sectors. The three technologies were discussed to show how each uses orthogonality of frequency ranges/slot modulation to achieve different data services which actually represents the fast-paced development of 5G technologies.
With IoT being applicable to many different field devices, NB IoT might just take first mover advantage provided it is able to create the correct technology standardisations relating to consumer needs, else, it may turn into a nice-to-have , making Lora or SigFox the absolute necessity for actual consumer needs. Either way, standardisations of LPWA technologies, will ensure MNO and manufacturers will find their own selling points to ensure technology innovation across field devices will serve specific consumer needs, making the transition to 5G about innovation and not economies of scale.
A demonstration was conducted to show how easy it actually is to work with IoT radio devices connected to a community-network like thethingsnetwork.org. Click here to see the video on how thethingsnetwork.org enable IoT devices to function across a LPWA ecosystem.
Particularly, NB IoT was discussed against Lora and SigFox networks. Where, whilst Lora and SigFox may have more use cases, NB IoT is likely to become the preferred choice for carrier grade networks to play within the Low Power Wan (LPWA) arena. Uplink and downlink speeds were discussed for field based devices, and whilst manufactures are likely to have a readymade consumer base with NB IoT for their devices with carrier networks, their is a need to ensure that QoS and smart features are satisfying consumer needs, else, the other contenders like Zigbee, Lora and SigFox might continue to capture the market base.
Other factors that affect economies of scale for NB IoT were discussed, such as bandwidth per message, power consumption, trade-off between data rates and signal coding, cost per connection, device access charges, chipset development and base station requirements (number of registered devices). This brought about the need to mention Service Provider Vs Self Service model, and how an entire ecosystem can be created based off each technology type, including shared services. Security was also mentioned and it too could be the reason why one technology might win over another, concepts such as cellular authentication, hardware encryption, radio and transport encryption were mentioned. The strongest use case will be IoT Payments - can the LPWA network make it easier for payment aggregators to achieve the millisecond transaction rate required ? and how can this be guaranteed for sensor based IoT devices.
The events discussions were more focused around how licensed and unlicensed spectrum of radio technology can be best provided. The race is already started, with the next Olympics likely to be the first main venue to offer 5G services, after which, its the needs of consumerisation and commercialisation of different fields which is likely to fuel IoT specialisations/needs across different sectors. The three technologies were discussed to show how each uses orthogonality of frequency ranges/slot modulation to achieve different data services which actually represents the fast-paced development of 5G technologies.
With IoT being applicable to many different field devices, NB IoT might just take first mover advantage provided it is able to create the correct technology standardisations relating to consumer needs, else, it may turn into a nice-to-have , making Lora or SigFox the absolute necessity for actual consumer needs. Either way, standardisations of LPWA technologies, will ensure MNO and manufacturers will find their own selling points to ensure technology innovation across field devices will serve specific consumer needs, making the transition to 5G about innovation and not economies of scale.
A demonstration was conducted to show how easy it actually is to work with IoT radio devices connected to a community-network like thethingsnetwork.org. Click here to see the video on how thethingsnetwork.org enable IoT devices to function across a LPWA ecosystem.