Capacity is key in IOT era

Examining current networking and communications trends to resolve questions about the role of modern technology in tomorrow's world is probably as useful as gazing intently into a crystal ball. There is no certainty beyond the inevitability of change.

A betting man may well place money on the growth of the mobile world and its increasing influence on personal and professional lives. He may well stake a sizable sum on the belief that increased functionality and an avalanche of new applications will lead to more bandwidth consumption and a boost for wireless communications.

But, who today will be prepared to place money on the future direction of ICT based on the speed at which user expectations are currently evolving?

Thanks to the BYOD (bring your own device) phenomenon, users are expecting their online experiences to be replicated everywhere they go - from the office to the home and then into hotels, hospitals, schools, stadiums and so many other venues via their smartphones, tablets and PCs.

As the BYOD movement - and the consumerisation of IT - inexorably gathers momentum, so its shape and form are changing. Wearable technology has been added - in the form of glasses, watches and clothing - together with a slew of devices ranging from TV sets and security systems to thermostats, clocks and medical equipment (often with uniquely embedded computing technology), inspiring a range of new business models to exploit these groundbreaking innovations.

This is heralding a new era of connectivity in which devices, systems and services will transcend conventional machine-to-machine communications to include a wide variety of protocols, domains and apps. If there is a common denominator for the connectivity of these 'things', it is the use and exploitation of WiFi technology within existing network infrastructures linked to the Internet.

This phenomenon, known as the Internet of things (IOT), will evolve into an advanced 'universe' containing between tens-of-billions to hundreds-of-billions of 'things' before the decade is out.

The IOT has its origins in industrial automation, and in the convergence of operational technology and IT. It is thus perfectly placed to usher in an era in which automation is common in nearly all fields, facilitated by the interconnection of embedded devices.

In this light, the days of simply providing 'coverage' is no longer an acceptable basis for planning and implementing WiFi-based networks. The new watchword is 'capacity'.

Up to now, the ability to transmit higher data rates over great distances from a given access point (AP) has been the challenge. However, in tomorrow's world this capability carries little significance. Between that AP and a device 100 metres away will be any number of other WiFi devices demanding access for airtime.

The 'holy grail' for vendors in a future world will become WiFi that can scale to robustly support more devices and applications in hyper-dense venues, with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of simultaneous users.

Unsurprisingly, vendors are taking varied approaches to IOT. Some envision a matrix of sensors enabling businesses, and even cities, to operate under a 'cloud' infrastructure. Others see the building of interoperable multi-layer platforms, with 'learning machines' capable of delivering data to help businesses take the right actions at appropriate times.

The IOT will no doubt become a ubiquitous technology. Innovation will be seen in the form of new smart devices, new networking protocols, new long-life batteries and more. The IOT will drive massive gains in efficiency, business growth and quality of life. And it will change how decisions are made about the physical world.

A betting man may well place money on the growth of the mobile world and its increasing influence on personal and professional lives.

Soon every individual on the planet will be impacted in some way by the IOT - either directly or indirectly. Inevitably, the IOT will lead to the Internet of everything (IOE) through the addition of more people, more process and ever-increasing data loads carried by any number of global networks, which will become more relevant and increasingly valuable.

These infrastructures will be characterised by new levels of convergence, orchestration and visibility across previously disparate systems. They will offer new capabilities and richer experiences facilitated by the real-time analysis of data, which will be turned into useful information for marketplace forecasting. The effects will be broad and profound for most organisations and their customers.

The IOE will drive the creation of standards and, in the long term, facilitate the precise alignment of the IT industry around a common foundation, rendering obsolete today's heterogeneous operating system environments, varying connectivity protocols and legacy application incompatibility. A safe bet, perhaps?