DALLAS – Allen Proithis, president of Sigfox North America, gave a keynote address titled “Power to the devices” at this week’s LPWA Americas event. Proithis spoke of the current state of the “internet of things” and gave requirements for what is needed from low-power wide-area networks to help continue to move IoT forward.
Proithis said today’s technology landscape is pivoting around IoT much like the dot-com era – everyone is rebranding as an IoT company. He said even security attacks, like the distributed denial of service hack from last month, are incorrectly being branded IoT because it is “sexy.”
“There is a lot of diversity and estimates on IoT,” Proithis said. “Whatever the number, it is one of the most exciting markets we have ever seen.”
Predictions vs reality
But there exists a huge gap between the rhetoric and reality when there exist estimates that put tens of billions of connected devices in play by 2020. Proithis said even the best sales are connecting tens of millions of devices, not billions, noting this is because most existing technology today is made for people, not made for things or machines.
The Sigfox president says the gap between future predictions and today’s landscape is about three basic things:
- Cost (too expensive) – IP cost of people-oriented technology is more expensive than module cost.
- Battery life (too short).
- Complexity (too many pieces) – hardware, connectivity, application layer.
Proithis went on to explore the evolution of other technologies, and the process and time it takes to go from being talked about and tested to being widely adopted. He cites both the Model-T and modern computer as taking over 30 years to arrive after the earliest signs of the underlying technology came about. Proithis said IoT, like those others game-changing innovations, needs to hit a point where it is good enough for the masses. It will then reach its tipping point and take off.
But Proithis kept expectations in check, stating compromise is inevitable when using an IoT network, and enterprises will need to pick the characteristics appropriate for the problems they will need to solve.
What is needed of LPWA
Proithis gave four areas of LPWA networks that are required for enabling IoT:
Energy efficiency
–Ultra-narrowband spectrum.
–No permanent signaling – devices “wake up” only to transmit a short message.
–Low power consumption by devices – years of battery life.
Ubiquitous connectivity
–Global homogenous and scalable.
–One cloud through with all data transits.
–Real-time signal processing at scale.
Simplicity
–Out-of-the-box connectivity – no pairing required.
–Simple network infrastructure requirements, simple rollout planning and execution.
–Channel partners – “one contract, one-network” model.
Low cost
–Network – license-free ISM band and cost-efficient base stations.
–Objects – license-free, standardized, low unit value chipsets.
–Subscription model with some annual fees for as low as $1.
Sigfox has plans to be in more than 60 territories by 2018, working with operators around the world. Companies like Intel and Samsung have invested in the company, which has gained more than $150 million in investments.
