Is IOT going the Internet way…

‘Internet of Things’ is perhaps where internet was in mid 90's and there are several aspects in which they are at a similar stage from a technology life-cycle perspective.

Growth Cycle:

To demonstrate this numerically let’s look at Table 1.1[1] forecasting growth of internet and Table 1.2[2] which is one of current forecasts on IOT growth. One point many surveys and analysts consistently have foreseen is the exponential rise in the number of ‘device to device’ connections in the next decade.

Table 1.1. Traffic on Internet backbones in U.S., shows estimated traffic in terabytes/month

Table 1.2 IHS forecasts that the IoT market will grow from an installed base of 15.4 billion devices in 2015 to 30.7 billion devices in 2020 and 75.4 billion in 2025

A multifold increase was forecasted for internet and is forecasted for IOT. Forecasting in case of IOT becomes a bit tricky because of the dealings being in the B2B space where transactions can be lumpy.

Technology Adaption Lifecycle

Internet of things has actually been around in the Enterprise space for couple of decades now. Have met people who have been implementing Enterprise IOT based automation for about 25 years now. My own brush with IOT was back in 2002 when I ordered an ‘SMS based Instrumentation’ kit from ‘Electronics for You’.

Much like the internet, first adaption of IOT is also happening the enterprise space. This is also reflected in multiple analyst estimates which foresee that 80% of the use cases in the IOT space will occur in the B2B space.

In an enterprise scenario, another aspect of similarity, in terms of technology life-cycle, is in the purpose for pursuit. Implementation of IOT solutions for reduction in operations costs and reaction times is pretty intuitive now. What many organizations are also beginning to consider, is the significant enhancements in their product offerings that can be enabled by making ‘things’ connected.

Challenges at scale

In terms of the typical challenges that large scale deployments are facing we seem to be at a similar stage as internet was in mid 90’s. There are two specific challenges one sees commonly:

Security

Be it the recent hack into the internet via an IOT device somewhere on the street in Hong Kong or demonstrations of cars being hacked over the internet. The threats are becoming real and the service and application providers are coming up with ways to address these challenges.

Reliability

As IOT increasingly penetrates mission critical infrastructure and services, it no longer remains to be a subject for the hobbyists. A serious consumer of IOT service is beginning to ask for composite SLA’s which cover end to end service.

Service providers in turn are developing horizontal capabilities to be able to provide end to end SLAs and increase their share in the revenue pie.

Role of Telecom service providers:

If not more, this topic warrants dedicated article by itself. However, with regards to IOT, what is evident is that Telco’s are perhaps in the same zone where they were with internet in say 1995. More so in terms of; 1) Their operational efficiency in terms serving an MB per Mhz/line 2) Unclear stand in the space of Device, Network and Applications.

What remains to be seen is if they will be able to stop the ‘Rise of the Stupid Network’[3] this time around or will it be a repeat of the OTT story and one might look back and say as far as Telcos are concerned, IOT was the OTT of B2B

Watch this space for similar ramblings in the IOT space…

[1] By K. G. Coffman and A. M. Odlyzko at AT&T research labs

[2] By IHS global in report titled IoT platforms: enabling the Internet of Things, March 2016

[3]The Rise of the Stupid Network was originally written during a single long weekend in May 1997 by David S. Isenberg while he was an employee of AT&T Labs Research. http://isen.com/stupid.html