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The Internet of Things is in need of standards

The Wireless IoT Forum (WIoTF) has announced its launch, saying it aims to drive the standardisation and deployment of connected devices and appliances, and the development and adoption of wireless wide-area networking (WAN) technologies, reports Telecoms.com.

The organisation said it will work with stakeholders across the board, including operators, infrastructure providers, app developers in utilities, government and specialist SMEs, semiconductor vendors, and end-users.

Its goal, according to the WIoTF, is to encourage the adoption of WAN IoT connectivity in competition with, or as a complement to, LAN, PAN, mesh and other options, spanning all forms of WAN connectivity, including 3GPP cellular-IoT and license-exempt WAN IoT

Although the founding members of the WIoTF won’t be revealed until 28 April, apparently to be announced at the M2M World Congress, the group said Will Franks has been appointed as Chairman and William Webb as CEO. Franks’ background is in Cisco-acquired small cell vendor Ubiquisys, where he was Founder and CTO. Webb is currently also President at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), as well as previously having held senior positions at Ofcom.

According to Franks, openness is a key to successful mobile technologies. “Successful wireless technologies have always been founded on interoperability, open standards, and a focus on the demands of end-users,” he said.

“The Forum is committed to securing these conditions and working with all major stakeholders to ensure successful and timely deployment of the Internet of Things worldwide. We are delighted to have helped bring together key industry players with the common goal of driving standardisation and interoperability. These players have the vision to recognise the need to collaborate to create robust technology platforms while competing to create dynamic markets.”

One of the aims of the WIoTF is to minimise fragmentation within the IoT market. Webb said: “The wireless Internet of Things is bringing connectivity and control to an order of magnitude more devices, however there is a very real risk of fragmented standards and technologies holding back the development of the market.

“There has also been a tremendous amount of work done in the IoT world across a wide range of technologies. As in the cellular world, the success of this will lie in the promotion of open standards. The Forum will work tirelessly to make this a reality in the IoT world.”

Nicolas Graube, fellow at Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), agreed with the view the IoT will not materialise in a meaningful way unless common standards are put in place. Commenting on the back of an announcement about Cambridge Wireless’ upcoming Future of Wireless International Conference (to be held 23 and 24 June), he said: “The IoT is arguably at the peak of its hype cycle and there are some significant obstacles that must be overcome before this dream can become a reality.

“Standardisation coupled with the logistics involved in managing, protecting and making accessible the constant stream of data generated by an ever growing number of connected devices are just some of the key challenges that lie ahead’.

IoT certainly has been one of the industry’s most prominent buzzwords for some time but it seems lately a growing number of people have started to voice concern over the absence of any standardisation. As recently reported by Telecoms.com, the importance of security and simplicity of use have also been highlighted as key considerations for the IoT. It looks like the period of hype is beginning to come to an end and the industry needs to start focusing on developing a framework under which the IoT can materialise in a meaningful way.

The 2nd annual Internet of Things World event to be held in San Francisco in May is due to address some of the challenges ahead of the industry in terms of IoT. Sign up here.

Internet of Things devices need to be simple and secure if customers are to adopt

The entire telecoms industry needs to focus on ensuring the IoT delivers real value to consumers, and the security and user simplicity of connected devices should be of paramount importance, said Jeff Fonseca, the regional sales director, Americas at chip vendor NXP in an interview with Telecoms.com.

As an NFC specialist whose customer case examples in the contactless payments space include the London Underground’s contactless travel, the badges at MWC, and several banks’ EMV cards, NXP is increasingly focusing on IoT. According to Fonseca, securing connected devices is something that has to happen for consumers to really get on board with the IoT.

“What we bring in terms of IoT is really the security. All the [secure] stuff we do in passports, all the stuff we do on bank cards, and secure payments, getting you securely onto trains, that type of secure technology, embedding that and infusing that into other categories like IoT [is on our agenda].”

But he said it is not yet clear what exactly is behind the much hyped term. “Honestly, IoT is a big word that I don’t know has a true definition of what’s going to be the one key thing that is IoT. There’s so many moving pieces and parts the difficulty is really unwrapping that, and then making sure we know where we need to be on the trajectory with the right players and partners.

“We need to have ways to execute upon very good security and connectivity that is simple for consumers to use, and that is scalable. It [IoT] shouldn’t be just a buzz word, it should actually have usable value for the consumer.”

Fonseca said there’s not much point in having numerous connected devices in the home unless there’s one common way to communicate with them. “You’re not gona have 10 different devices that all talk a different language in your home, that’s not gona scale in the IoT space. But if you have the ability to have a few devices that talk a similar language, then consumers start to see value from the perspective of managing your home with your smartphone, for example.”

But with having billions of devices connected to the internet come security implications, and Fonseca said ensuring consumers’ security is a key consideration. “How does that work, and how does that work securely? How do you take the cloud and connect it down to these end-point devices in your home and still manage them with your smartphone or your tablet.

“These are the difficult conversations we all have to have as an industry to move in that direction to make sure that in the end it’s all about the consumer, and making sure that there’s an extremely simple and usable product for them. Even though it’s complex underneath to do all this stuff that has to happen in IoT, the consumer doesn’t care, the consumer just wants it to work and they want it to be secure.”

At the MWC 2015 NXP was showcasing its product portfolio, which on top of the technology to secure bank cards and passports also includes solutions for connected car, wireless mobile charging, and ‘smart-audio’ solutions that enhance voice and call clarity based on information passed on by algorithms designed to recognise the environment from which the call is made. The firm has also developed wireless, magnetic inductance-based earbuds as part of a concept it calls ‘true mobility’.

At the beginning of the month NXP announced its plan to acquire competitor Freescale Semiconductor. “We are going to acquire them and the announcement so far has stated that part of that [acquisition] is this IoT convergence play,” Fonesca said. “Freescale is very strong in that category as well, and we’ll see some obvious synergies from taking what NXP has and from what they can bring to the table towards an IoT play.”

Visit the world’s largest & most comprehensive IoT event – Internet of Things World – this May

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