Professionals have cautioned that the implementation of the Internet of Things will be hampered due to the presence of quite a few competing standards. The industry is still divided regarding the manner in which the 50 billion “things” will be connected to the Internet by 2020.
The market is gradually accepting the concept of networked homes and smart cities. The speakers at the yearly Future of Wireless conference, scheduled in Cambridge, feel that a wide-scale acceptance will be hindered due to the breakup of the ecosystem.
Technologies like low energy variants of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth along with mobile networks, white space radio, and several proprietary wireless standards are presently being utilized for Machine-to-Machine or M2M communications. As several technologies are used, it is not possible to predict the supremacy of a single technology in the up-and-coming market.
A compilation of technologies that unveil connectivity into daily devices and appliances is known as the Internet of Things or IoT, also branded as M2M communication. According to a research carried out by Ericsson (News - Alert), the number of these devices will touch 50 billion by 2020. The industry however offers different views regarding the manner in which this will be accomplished.
According to Bill McFarland, vice president of Technology at Qualcomm (News - Alert), the cost and power usage of the present IoT chips was approaching a point where it would be equipped for mass acceptance. All IoT standards are expected to exist for the subsequent five years, but the numbers will have to decrease, ultimately. This will be possible when key technology organizations like Apple (News - Alert) or Samsung finalize on a solitary technology.
According to McFarland, HomePlug, Wi-Fi 802.11ah and Bluetooth LE are some of the extremely probable competitors for IoT superiority. He, however, ignored Weightless, the M2M communications standard developed in Cambridge and administered by the Weightless SIG.
In a statement, William Webb, CEO of Weightless SIG said, “We know Qualcomm have very strong interest in both LTE (News - Alert) and Wi-Fi, that’s where their competence lies. So they are clearly going to be most interested in seeing if they can stretch either of those two technologies into Machine-to-Machine. We heard from them that Wi-Fi is their preference, and that’s no surprise, that’s their skill set.”
Edited by Ryan Sartor