Debuting a four-part series highlighting experts IoT Insider spoke to at Hardware Pioneers, in this first part we speak to Toby Gasston, Mobile Core Product Lead at Wireless Logic, who was present at the event to talk about cellular connectivity.
As part of his talk, Gasston showcased the history of the cellular IoT connectivity landscape in an effort to show just how much the landscape has changed since, and how many new and emerging technologies are being taken into consideration. IoT Insider Editor Caitlin Gittins caught up with Gasston after his talk to delve further into aspects of his presentation.
“I find a lot of the talks at these shows sometimes confusing,” Gasston explained, “and we’re always talking about new technologies. I think it’s useful for us not only to see how complicated everything has become from a connectivity provider standpoint but to take a step back and understand how we’ve got to this point.
“I think sometimes people are afraid to say things they find confusing,” he continued. “It’s better to admit we’re all confused and work through this together.”
In the brief history lesson provided, Gasston underlined that the role cellular IoT networks played and that the approach of mobile network operators (MNOs) has changed a lot since. In the early noughties, MNOs weren’t thinking about data roaming but were competing for market dominance. And the cellular data being passed along these networks would have been basic pieces of data, like checking an email.
2007 – 2009 marked a turning point with drivers of change like the smartphones and data hungry mobile applications taking off, changing what people were accessing on these networks. Some of the new technologies today include Narrowband-IoT; eSIMs; and wafer-level silicon. These technologies present challenges for MNOs in keeping up, and in managing legacy traffic running on 2G and 3G devices. 2G and 3G networks send a lot of messages while 5G is more economical.
I was curious to know whether Gasston thought the industry had been prepared for this exponential growth in IoT devices on the market, as he emphasised the growth in his talk. The short answer: no. “It was just a happy accident of roaming,” he said. “Everyone’s doing this stuff in isolation. For instance, if you have a trail camera or sensor and you sell it to an industrial company and it becomes hugely popular overnight, nobody really thinks in detail about what that means for things like mobile networks and scalability and things because it’s not their problem – they’re using a service that exists.”
Gasston said that module and hardware companies are at the “bleeding edge of new technologies” and don’t necessarily communicate with MNOs. This lack of communication has created some issues. “A really good example is the low power market in the UK. You have O2 UK who provide an LTE-M network, you’ve got Vodafone UK who provided a Narrowband network, you’ve got EE and Vodafone now looking to do additional technologies – it’s not linked up,” said Gasston. “For connectivity providers such as us, it’s difficult for us to solve these problems because we don’t own the core network, or we don’t own the radio towers.”
Communication isn’t exclusive between module and hardware manufacturers and MNOs, but MNOs speaking to one another too. “They don’t make a lot of money out of IoT … it’s complicated,” Gasston pointed out.
One potential solution to this problem could be following the example of MNOs that have split off their core business to create dedicated core networks for IoT devices – although building these networks comes with a hefty cost.
A simpler solution to be drawn is facilitating communication between all involved parties – MNOs, hardware and module manufacturers. Hardware Pioneers could be the kind of show to bring these parties together to discuss, Gasston said.
“It’s solvable, that’s the point. All it’s going to take is a bit of communication,” he concluded.
This is part one of a four-part series. To read part two, click here.
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