Just about every participant in the mobile ecosystem (from chips to operating systems to hardware, apps and networking services) has to think about the potential upside from massive internet of things adoption.
Device and app suppliers arguably have an easier time conceiving of new value they could provider.
Smartphones normally contain some common sensors, including accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, GPS, ambient light sensors, proximity sensors and other potential sensors that might eventually enable IoT applications. Other capabilities of phones, such as use of their radios, can help establish traffic conditions, using the phones as proxies for vehicles.
But there are some valuable bits of information smartphones will not be directly able to sense, such as road conditions. So Pirelli envisions smart tires, which are capable of sensing and communicating road information to apps and other drivers.
Opportunities for connectivity providers are harder to see, beyond supplying the mobile or fixed connections. Some believe that tier-one telcos could handle the life cycle management of IoT sensors. Hardest of all, but more lucrative, connectivity providers might create IoT apps themselves in a few areas, most likely around transport, cars and other vehicles, which require untethered communications.
There are obvious issues to be overcome. Life cycle management will include replacing sensors and batteries. That might be conceivable for portable sensors, but there also are other obvious channels (electronics retailers, large retailers). Replacing embedded sensors does not seem to be an area where big telcos or internet service providers necessarily have a natural advantage.
That might be something better suited in many industry verticals to the service operations already in place to support industry-specific equipment. In other words, if a consumer has a heating or cooling system sensor problem, is a telco the logical company to come fix the problem? How about sensor issues on an industrial robot, or a sensor on a vehicle?
Many believed telcos could be viable suppliers of some types of computing infrastructure as well, and that rarely has worked as well as hoped. Still, the general thinking is that IoT presents a range of potential roles for access providers, beginning with the connectivity function.
Moving towards platform opportunities, perhaps access providers create application program interface capabilities allowing third parties to add communications to their services and apps, though, as always, specialists seem already to have established themselves in this role.
To greater or lesser degrees, some access providers might develop vertical industry capabilities or perhaps domain-specific solutions. Perhaps one logical avenue is IoT for internal use for asset management and security.
In fact, the telecom industry is among the top-four industries for use of sensors and monitoring systems, Tata Consultancy Services found.
As a rule, we should expect all access providers to build first on the connectivity function. Only a relative few will attempt other roles as platforms or solution providers.
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