Barriers and challenges to the deployment of IoT

According to The Internet of Things: Opportunities for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Management (WASH) Management Report*, numerous challenges must be resolved to ensure successful IoT roll-out.

Here are some of the challenges listed in the report:

Trust, security and privacy: Data obtained through IoT can easily be used in ways damaging to people, organisations or environments.

Interoperability between device and middleware, middleware and application, as well as systems in a broader ecosystem, is affected by: Evolving (maturity and number) standards – Numerous standards are being developed (or have been published recently). This factor complicates the interoperability between IoT solutions. Currently, no single standard dominates the market.

The explosion in the number of service (middleware) platforms – Middleware platforms implement different standards or use in-house defined technologies. This approach limits the interaction between systems from different vendors. The number and heterogeneity of devices – With the rapid introduction of new devices, each with their own data formats, information models and communication protocols, middleware platforms need to be adapted to be able to incorporate data observations. This implies the continuous evolution of platforms with associated increase in complexity leading to significantly higher costs.

Facilitating unique addressability through IPv6: Each device and service need to be addressable to facilitate data communication. IPv4 has a limited number of IP numbers, which limits addressability. IPv6 can address this limitation, but IPv6’s uptake has not yet been as pervasive as expected.

Robustness of solutions: Not all technologies are robust to the point where the data, decisions and services are fully trusted. Technologies need to be verified and certified through the appropriate certification bodies to increase the likelihood of success.

Acceptance of data driven smart decisions: Society needs to adapt to a space where smart algorithms using the data collected will make complex decisions.

The cost of data

The required bandwidth

The infrastructure required for communication: In addition to the abovedescribed universal challenges, South Africa is also faced with challenges not typically present in developed countries. These include:

• poor and expensive connectivity

• unregulated environments

• business models still evolving and mostly unsubstantiated

• expensive to import various technologies

• limited access to skilled technicians for support and maintenance

• IoT is currently still a small local industry, which restricts the provision of largescale, mass solutions.

Apart from the current focus ‘urban’ on applications of IoT in mainly the water sector, which is also necessary, there are therefore huge opportunities to investigate the use and benefits of IoT in WASH as an integrated and interlinked domain. Vast opportunities also exist for research to determine how IoT technologies can be used to improve the lives and health of the large proportion of the South African population that depends on WASH services that cannot be classified as safely managed, improved or advanced, and to develop suitable technologies to fit such environments.

*The Internet of Things: Opportunities for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Management (WASH) Management Report has been reviewed by the Water Research Commission (WRC) and compiled by Dr Louis Coetzee and Professor Paula Kotze.

The report can be accessed here: