5G Americas Announces Future Of IoT And 5G White Paper

The trade association of 5G and LTE for the Americas, 5G Americas released 5G: The Future of IoT.  This 5G Americas’ white paper explores the market drivers and technology solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) and an overview of developments in 3GPP standards for cellular IoT that will create a connected future.

The report estimates $1 trillion in worldwide spending will result in 20 billion connected things by 2020, achieving the scale expected for ‘massive IoT’ adoption – essentially billions of devices and machines that require connectivity, whether mobile, nomadic or stationary.

The global standards organisation, 3GPP, is said to have been future-proofing cellular technology to meet market requirements across mass connectivity.

“The future-proofing and delivery of IoT becomes essential as networks transform from 4G to 5G,” stated Vicki Livingston, Vice President of Communications at 5G Americas and co-author of the whitepaper.

“In 2019, we are seeing the early deployment of 5G networks. However, LTE IoT will continue to evolve over coming years, leveraging the scale, longevity and global coverage of LTE networks and complement initial 5G New Radio deployments that focus on enhanced mobile broadband and high-performance IoT. Continued LTE evolution is an integral part of the 5G platform – a unified, more capable connectivity fabric for our future.”

5G: The Future of IoT highlights the 3GPP standards that are being developed and also provides options for licensed, unlicensed and shared bands. The 3GPP aims to set the overall standards and establish themselves as a market enabler in the future-proofing and delivery of IoT as networks transform from 4G to 5G.

Chris Pearson, President of 5G Americas whitepaper, says, “the growth path for IoT has been immense and it is easy to recognise it all around – in cities, vehicles, industries and communities. In these transformative times, a flexible system of transformational technology such as 5G can provide the infrastructural foundation for the expanding demands coming in the form of not only more devices but also specialized devices with varying performance requirements.”

As of June 2019, there are 56 networks worldwide offering LTE Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT Cat-NB1), however, innovation in LTE IoT technology is expected to deliver additional enhancements that’ll meet the massive IoT requirements in 5G networks.

“Technology solutions such as cloud computing, edge cloud and artificial intelligence are being applied to IoT use cases with much success. In addition, security enhancements to keep all the data generated by these ‘things’ protected from hackers, is addressed by the cellular technologies for IoT,” says Betsy Covell, Member of Technical Staff for Nokia and co-author of the white paper.

“3GPP is meeting the challenge of the developing IoT market with many enhancements in 5G, building on the solid base provided in 4G that addresses key performance indicators such as low latency, high reliability and positioning accuracy necessary for industrial, enterprise and even consumer use of IoT devices.”

Source: itnewsafrica