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Cellular 5G networks—now being refined—might eventually become a universal solution for IoT connectivity. Although some global telecommunications networks and industrial applications now use 5G, this technology will not be widely available for at least five years, because of high development and deployment costs.
To help business leaders identify the connectivity solutions that best meet their current needs, we analyzed 13 sectors, including automotive, manufacturing, construction, and consumer, where IoT applications are common.
Our research included both data analysis and expert interviews with operators, connectivity-technology providers, and industry experts. The sectors are automotive; manufacturing; defense; agriculture; mining; construction; oil and gas; insurance; healthcare; cities; utilities; travel, transport, and logistics; and consumer. In each sector, we focused on connectivity requirements for likely use cases—in other words, the tasks or activities that may be most amenable to IoT solutions.
We then identified the most relevant connectivity solutions for each one. In addition, we examined business factors that may influence how the connectivity landscape evolves, as well as the elements of a strong connectivity strategy. When contemplating their options for IoT connectivity, companies must choose among solutions from four categories: unlicensed; low power, wide area LPWA ; cellular; and extraterrestrial. Companies may find it difficult to choose among these technologies because each IoT use case presents unique requirements for bandwidth, range, and other connectivity features.
LPWA options are also difficult to evaluate because they are still in the early stages of deployment, and their full potential and drawbacks will not become obvious until they are implemented on a greater scale. These solutions are not exclusively licensed to a particular company, allowing the public to access them on any IoT device that uses this technology.
Unlicensed solutions are relatively inexpensive and allow businesses to manage their own networks, rather than relying on a mobile operator to do so.
On the downside, unlicensed technologies are vulnerable to interference from electrical or environmental obstacles, such as a large number of buildings that may interfere with signal transmission. They also face difficulty providing connectivity over long distances more than meters. Companies have various options for unlicensed connectivity, all of which have distinct features. For instance, Wi-Fi—perhaps the most well-known unlicensed option—has bandwidth of up to one gigabyte per second. That is higher than the bandwith for Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Z-Wave.
In addition to providing long battery life and extensive range, LPWA technologies are reliable and associated with low costs. No other technology offers these four characteristics in combination. For instance, unlicensed technologies are unreliable, while cellular technologies are expensive and cannot provide power for multiple years on a single charge.
Only 20 percent of the global population is now covered by LPWA networks, so they cannot become the default solution within the next five years, but their availability is growing rapidly. By , we expect that most IoT applications will use LPWA networks, which will make connectivity choices less confusing. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project, an organization that develops connectivity guidelines, is also working to standardize several nonproprietary technologies that are supported by many or all mobile-equipment, chipset, and module manufacturers.
Each LPWA technology has different advantages and implementation requirements. For instance, Sigfox manages its own networks, while LoRa is supported by more than partners. NB-IoT relies on existing cellular infrastructure for the small pilots in which it is being tested. This will also be the case when NB-IoT becomes more widely available and is applied in larger-scale programs. Current 4G LTE technology offers high bandwidth of up to megabytes per second and a large range of more than ten kilometers.
Reliability and availability are also good. On the downside, 4G LTE technology is associated with high costs—several dollars or more for a module compared to less than a dollar for Wi-Fi. Cellular connectivity also has high power-consumption requirements, making it less than ideal for IoT applications, where battery life should extend over multiple years.
Companies can deploy 4G LTE connectivity over public or private networks. Public networks use the same connectivity infrastructure as mobile phones, while private networks segregate devices into a separate system by sublicensing unused frequencies from mobile operators with enterprise-owned infrastructure.
Some companies in our analysis managed private networks, but most lacked the necessary capabilities and budget. This will also be the case within the wider population. This connectivity option includes satellite and other microwave technologies. IoT stakeholders generally use it only when cellular and fiber options are not feasible, since it has the highest costs. For instance, organizations within national defense may use satellite connectivity for unmanned drones.
Extraterrestrial options have low-to-medium bandwidth, high range, and medium-to-high reliability and availability. Only a few industries rely on extraterrestrial connectivity for IoT apps. But the predictable pathways of information are changing: the physical world itself is becoming a type of information system. These networks churn out huge volumes of data that flow to computers for analysis. When objects can both sense the environment and communicate, they become tools for understanding complexity and responding to it swiftly.
Pill-shaped microcameras already traverse the human digestive tract and send back thousands of images to pinpoint sources of illness. Precision farming equipment with wireless links to data collected from remote satellites and ground sensors can take into account crop conditions and adjust the way each individual part of a field is farmed—for instance, by spreading extra fertilizer on areas that need more nutrients.
Billboards in Japan peer back at passersby, assessing how they fit consumer profiles, and instantly change displayed messages based on those assessments.
Yes, there are traces of futurism in some of this and early warnings for companies too. Knowing how often or intensively a product is used can create additional options—usage fees rather than outright sale, for example. Manufacturing processes studded with a multitude of sensors can be controlled more precisely, raising efficiency. And when operating environments are monitored continuously for hazards or when objects can take corrective action to avoid damage, risks and costs diminish.
The widespread adoption of the Internet of Things will take time, but the time line is advancing thanks to improvements in underlying technologies. Advances in wireless networking technology and the greater standardization of communications protocols make it possible to collect data from these sensors almost anywhere at any time. Massive increases in storage and computing power, some of it available via cloud computing, make number crunching possible at very large scale and at declining cost.
None of this is news to technology companies and those on the frontier of adoption. But as these technologies mature, the range of corporate deployments will increase. Now is the time for executives across all industries to structure their thoughts about the potential impact and opportunities likely to emerge from the Internet of Things.
We see six distinct types of emerging applications, which fall in two broad categories: first, information and analysis and, second, automation and control exhibit. As the new networks link data from products, company assets, or the operating environment, they will generate better information and analysis, which can enhance decision making significantly.
Some organizations are starting to deploy these applications in targeted areas, while more radical and demanding uses are still in the conceptual or experimental stages. When products are embedded with sensors, companies can track the movements of these products and even monitor interactions with them.
Business models can be fine-tuned to take advantage of this behavioral data. That allows these companies to base the price of policies on how a car is driven as well as where it travels.
Zipcar has pioneered this model, and more established car rental companies are starting to follow. Market leaders such as Tesco are at the forefront of these uses. In the business-to-business marketplace, one well-known application of the Internet of Things involves using sensors to track RFID radio-frequency identification tags placed on products moving through supply chains, thus improving inventory management while reducing working capital and logistics costs.
The range of possible uses for tracking is expanding. In the aviation industry, sensor technologies are spurring new business models. Manufacturers of jet engines retain ownership of their products while charging airlines for the amount of thrust used. Airplane manufacturers are building airframes with networked sensors that send continuous data on product wear and tear to their computers, allowing for proactive maintenance and reducing unplanned downtime.
Data from large numbers of sensors, deployed in infrastructure such as roads and buildings or to report on environmental conditions including soil moisture, ocean currents, or weather , can give decision makers a heightened awareness of real-time events, particularly when the sensors are used with advanced display or visualization technologies. Security personnel, for instance, can use sensor networks that combine video, audio, and vibration detectors to spot unauthorized individuals who enter restricted areas.
Some advanced security systems already use elements of these technologies, but more far-reaching applications are in the works as sensors become smaller and more powerful, and software systems more adept at analyzing and displaying captured information. Logistics managers for airlines and trucking lines already are tapping some early capabilities to get up-to-the-second knowledge of weather conditions, traffic patterns, and vehicle locations.
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