Doing 10 times less is how we save the planet and how many public and commercial sectors survive. And it's all about the massive Internet of Things.
The only reason the massive IoT hasn't really arrived yet is because it wasn't technically or commercially feasible before. And the advantages of large-scale IoT – 10x the benefits of 10x smarter and 10x less – cannot be underestimated.
In the next decade, every business and public organization in the world will need to provide more services with fewer resources to ensure the survival of their business and the planet as a whole. Preventable waste and inefficiencies will only exist until large-scale IoT implementations. Today, we see a viable path to the Internet of Things at scale.
Around the world, many industries and sectors are experimenting and exploring large-scale IoT projects. Electric energy utilities are an example of this. The shift to green and renewable energy is critical for the planet, but it's also a shift to less reliable and uncontrollable power generation** (solar, wind, tidal) than older coal-fired power stations.
To guarantee power**, energy companies must adapt to once unimaginable levels of change in their grids. Successfully navigating this change requires not only knowing how much power the customer is using, but also how much power the customer might want to use, and even having a stronger intuition than the customer themselves.
The shift to green energy is the shift to the massive Internet of Things. The same will be true for hundreds of other industries and fields. Massive IoT is here and is here to stay. Because once several companies and organizations have successfully pioneered large-scale IoT in their operations, its 10x more and less benefits will be so compelling that their competitors and peers will immediately want – or even be forced – to replicate.
This means that, following our previous example, an Australian forward-thinking energy utility could be the first to show the world – both developed and developing – how reliable green energy can be truly achieved**.
Large-scale IoT refers to any machine-to-machine (M2M) communication device that can scale to millions, billions, or even trillions of connected IoT sensors and devices"things", with a density of one million devices per square kilometer. these"things"are small products, typically battery-powered, with limited energy, computing, and memory resources. This makes their connection requirements challenging and unique.
The Internet of Things on such a large scale will inevitably enter the world of massive data. This will inevitably enter the field of artificial intelligence and edge computing. While these are fairly new concepts to many industries, I believe they won't be a stumbling block as long as they're properly integrated into a well-designed user interface and device management platform.
Until now, the physical wireless connectivity networks required to connect IoT sensors and devices that collect massive amounts of IoT data have been a stumbling block. While there are some admirable proprietary attempts, it's hard for me to see the long-term prospects for these attempts, because if businesses are to bet on the future on any technology, they must know that the technology is still around decades from now.
And this requires standards and a large multi-vendor ecosystem. No commercial or public entity would invest millions or even billions of dollars in technology that only one company can provide and support. Doing so is risky, even reckless.
That's why the future of IoT at scale is now in the hands of two complementary 5G-standard wireless IoT technologies that have been built from the ground up to support large-scale IoT low-power wide-area (LPWA) networks: cellular IoT and DECT NR+.
Cellular IoT is a version of cellular wireless technology that targets the Internet of Things (IoT) in LPWA. From 4G to 5G, it has two types: LTE-M and NB-IoT (NB-IoT).
Although a long time in the making (a 3GPP group of seven telecommunications standards development organizations incorporated it into the 13th edition of the third-generation cellular wireless technology standard in 2015), this power-optimized version of cellular technology has now arrived. it"Works right out of the box", with near-global coverage, designed from the ground up for massive IoT expansion.
LTE-M and NB-IoT offer the same reliability and security as global cellular networks, but at long-range power consumption levels, they can support years of operation on small-weight batteries, which are unmatched by traditional cellular networks. This means that almost anything can now be connected to a global cellular network without the need for a gateway.
In the Industrial Internet of Things, for example, this means being able to monitor everything from the location and content of shipping containers and critical industrial assets, to the health of factory machinery and the likelihood of failure (e.g., judging by small changes in vibration).
Cellular IoT"Cons:"The reason is that access to a ubiquitous, secure, and reliable global network is not free. An important part of security and reliability is that your device must be certified to operate on the network. The data you send must be sent through the established carrier. All of this comes with cost and a certain level of complexity. But cost and complexity have been declining. I believe that in the future, cellular IoT will become the mainstream of large-scale IoT that requires global connectivity.
4G provides a platform for cellular IoT, while 5G is the first radio standard defined for truly large-scale IoT. DECT New Radio (NR)+ (Former name"dect-2020 nr") is the world's first non-cellular wireless technology to become a full 5G standard (according to the International Telecommunication Union's 2020 Mobile Communications International 5G Document).
DECT NR+ is a brand new wireless technology introduced by the DECT Forum. The DECT Forum is an organization dedicated to the development and improvement of DECT, and DECT is"Digitally enhanced cordless communication"The abbreviation reflects its origins in the world of dect ** in the early 90s of the 20th century.
In my opinion, DECT NR+ fills a gap in the LPWA network market that has been solved by proprietary alternatives until then. That said: If you don't need to operate globally, but only within one geographic area, enterprise IoT and public customers can now build their own"Private"network, which supports low-cost data. Use cases include asset tracking, smart cities, and smart energy.
1The 9 GHz operating frequency is a global license-free spectrum allocation (currently excluding Japan, India, and China). It forms a single.
1. A safe and reliable radio standard that is future-proof and scalable. In addition, because it is license-free, there are no data charges for DECT NR+ and its operating costs are lower than comparable licensed products.
With DECT NR+, users can deploy their own private networks. These private networks use proven technologies that are the foundation of a highly secure and ultra-reliable global cellular infrastructure. As a result, the technology promises to democratize 5G wireless technology, allowing large-scale IoT deployments to have all the benefits of cellular networks at a much lower cost.
All in all, over 100 million IoT deployments will become the norm globally over the next decade.
While"There is no choice"It's the impact that massive IoT will have on countless applications in hundreds, if not thousands, of industries over the next decade. The massive Internet of Things will revolutionize the way we live, work, and play in ways we can't imagine today. In this way, it will make the world a better, safer, greener, healthier, and ultimately a better place to live.
Svein-Egil Nielsen is the Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development at Nordic Semiconductor, a leading provider of Bluetooth, cellular IoT, Wi-Fi, and DECT NR+ chips.