Rajat Kochhar

Wireless and Wireline Networks Consultant at Ericsson

https://in.linkedin.com/in/rajatkochhar

All Articles by Rajat Kochhar

Internet of things (IoT), we all have been listening this term for some time now. The Internet of Things is a vision, it’s a paradigm. It is being built today for a better future tomorrow.

The term “Internet of Things” was coined by British entrepreneur Kevin Ashton in 1999.

In broad terms, the Internet of Things (IoT) is a computing concept that describes a future where every day physical objects will be connected to the Internet and be able to identify themselves to other devices. These objects can be cars, thermostats, electronic appliances, vending machines, industrial applications, animals with biochip responder and even humans with a heart monitor implant etc. So far, the Internet of Things has been most closely associated with machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in manufacturing, power, oil and gas utilities. Products built with M2M communication capabilities are often referred to as being smart (e.g. smart cities, smart meter, smart grid sensor etc).

Figure below gives the three main components of Internet of Things :

Fig.1 : Main Components of IoT 

Many studies have revealed that by 2020, an estimated 50 billion devices around the globe will be connected to the Internet.  Around one-third of them will be computers, smartphones, tablets, and TVs. The remaining two-thirds will be other kinds of “things”: sensors, actuators, and newly invented intelligent devices that monitor, control, analyze, and optimize our world.

There is not an iota of doubt that by 2020 internet of things will be one of the biggest market by revenue as well. Consider these facts:

1. According to a Gartner study, The total economic value-add from IoT across industries will reach $1.9 trillion worldwide in 2020.
2. As per Intel, Cities will spend $41 trillion in the next 20 years on infrastructure upgrades for IoT
3. Fifty billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020, predicts Cisco.
4. The UK government recently approved 45 million pounds (US$76.26 million) in research funding for Internet of Things technologies.
5. 75% of global business leaders are exploring the economic opportunities of IoT, according to a report from The Economist.
6. According to Mckinsey, wide deployment of IoT technologies in the auto industry could save $100 billion annually in accident reductions.

Although the term was IoT was coined in 1999, but it is now in the process of becoming a reality in recent years due to several key factors.

1. Emergence and wide acceptance of IPv6 leading to very huge addresses to assign to each and every “thing”
2. It is easier and cheaper to produce hardware, than what it was ten years ago. For example, open sourced microControllers like arduino, beaglebone black, raspberry Pi etc are readily available and are very cheap.
3. The world of wireless connectivity has dramatically evolved over the last few years (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Z-Wave, 4G etc).
4. IoT is able to leverage on an entire infrastructure that has emerged in related areas. Cloud computing enables the creation of “dumb” (simpler, cheaper) devices, with all the intelligence processed in the cloud. Big data tools, often open sourced enable the processing of massive amounts of data captured by the devices and will play a crucial role in the space.

There are many new technologies, key application areas for IoT, challenges etc which can be discussed in detail. I’ll cover few of them in subsequent posts.