IoT Magazine - September/October 2016

IoT Now: ISSN 2397-2793

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016 • VOLUME 6 • ISSUE 4

TALKING HEADS Neural networks, sensor fusion, robust networking and better security open the road to automation, says NXP

SMART ENERGY Is regulation still the main market driver?

TRANSPORT

SECURE IoT

INDUSTRIAL IoT

SMART ENERGY

IoT GLOBAL NETWORK

Connections for a moving industry.

See our Analyst Report at www.iot-now.com

How to address the growing threat. Read our exclusive Analyst Report in the Nov/Dec issue.

The new interconnected manufacturing environment.

See our Analyst Report at www.iot-now.com

New efficiency for living, working and playing.

See our Analyst Report inside this issue

Log on at www.iotglobalnetwork.com to discover our new portal for products, services and insight

PLUS: 8-PAGE SMART ENERGY INSIGHT REPORT - SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT: LPWA & LoRa, Beyond the Noise • Can IoT be enterprises' digital transformation platform? • Why cloud is so important for IoT • Are IoT platforms the best way to futureproof projects? • IoT picks up on the antenna performance debate • IoT Monetisation Supplement • News at www.iot-now.com

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CONTENTS

13

27

TALKING HEADS

16

45

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

IN THIS ISSUE 4

EDITOR’S COMMENT When does regulation stop being a driver and become a hindrance?

5

COMPANY NEWS Silicon Controls and Thinxtra connect a million oil & gas devices to Sigfox, AT&T pilots LTE-M modules with Sierra Wireless

6

MARKET NEWS Interdigital joins Avanci IoT licensing platform, Vodafone and Huawei complete first NB-IoT trial on a commercialised network

7

PRODUCT NEWS Gemalto and Valeo turn smartphones into car keys, Deutsche Telekom integrates Alexa into smart home platform

8

CONTRACT HOT LIST & OPINION A round-up of the latest Internet of Things contracts, plus Opinion: IoT – Have it your way

9

WHAT’S HOT ONLINE What are people reading on www.iot-now.com? And, on page 12, see what’s most popular on www.iotglobalnetwork.com

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13

PRODUCT NEWS Teradata launches IoT analytics to speed up slow moving IoT projects, u-blox announces ARA-R4 LTE Cat M1 modules TALKING HEADS Lars Reger and Juergen Weyer tell IoT Now that neural networks, sensor fusion, robust networking and heightened security will enable connected cars to offer more automation

LPWA SUPPLEMENT 24

EXPERT OPINION Emmanuel Maçon-Dauxerre explains how smart energy helps consumers save money, providers make money and companies achieve compliance

27

IoT NOW INSIGHT REPORT – SMART ENERGY In the latest of our ongoing series of speciallycommissioned, independent, analyst-written Insight Reports, Samuel Ropert of IDATE examines smart energy deployments and the market’s prospects

40

INTERVIEW Bernd Gross, the chief executive of Cumulocity advocates a platform-based approach to future-proof IoT applications

45

LPWA & LoRa SUPPLEMENT

46

INTERVIEW Daniel Quant, the vice president of product management and strategic market at Multi-Tech Systems, tells George Malim that low power long range (LPLR) enterprise networks offer compelling opportunities

50

LOW POWER COMMUNICATIONS Peter Dykes says LPWA is a market in the making

52

INTERVIEW Jeremy Cowan asks Actility’s Chistophe Francois how to ensure service interoperability

54

EXPERT OPINION Mohsen Shakoor and Niall Strachan tell George Malim that new connectivity options are vital to stimulate further utilisation of IoT

56

STANDARDS Joerg Koepp says 4G standards have IoT covered

58

IoT CLOUD PLATFORMS Peter Dykes says cloud platforms offer a means to access sensor networks in near real-time

60

16

DIGITAL BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION Antony Savvas asks can IoT be enterprises’ digital transformation platform?

INTERVIEW Santhosh Nair says if one area is weak the entire system is at risk

62

18

INTERVIEW Taoglas’ Sifiso Gambhaya explains the importance of antennas to IoT

PRIVACY Eve Maler warns that IoT success hinges on building digital trust

64

INTERVIEW Aurelio Blanquet discusses how to fight cyber criminals in advance of the SmartSec Europe event

66

EVENT PREVIEW Our guide to European Utility Week

68

EVENTS Never miss another key IoT event

20

INTERVIEW Thomas Seiler, the chief executive of u-blox, tells Beecham Research’s Robin Duke-Woolley that different technologies are required to support the diversity of applications that make up the IoT market

Cover Sponsor: NXP Semiconductors enables secure connections and infrastructure for a smarter world, advancing solutions that make lives easier, better and safer. As the world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, NXP is driving innovation in the secure connected vehicle, end-to-end security and privacy and smart connected solutions markets. Built on more than 60 years of combined experience and expertise, the company has 44,000 employees in more than 35 countries, and posted revenue of $6.1 billion in 2015. Find out more at www.nxp.com IoT Now - September / October 2016

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COMMENT

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Regulation might be the driver but what happens when the driver’s automated?

The conclusion of our analyst report this month is that regulation is still the driver when it comes to stimulating smart energy and smart metering projects in particular.

It’s obvious that when a government mandates something, sales of products and services that address it become mandatory and skyrocket. Many IoT apps will benefit from this regulatory intervention to spark off the market.

hybrid phase of assisted driving, are multilayered and extremely complex. Regulators need to come up with frameworks that can make this work for everybody – from car makers, to insurers and to the drivers themselves (or should they be called passengers?).

Such regulation has to take into account the vastly different applications. Yes, it makes sense for trucks to follow each other very closely on motorways using selfdriving technologies to maintain a constant speed and distance. Yes, it’s attractive to consider pressing a button and having your car drive you home after a tough day at work but there are other requirements to consider and different levels of consumer acceptance to take into account.

However, there’s a downside to regulation.

Sometimes it’s ill thought out, doesn’t quite address consumer needs or is simply unworkable. Examples of draconian regulation that have stifled creativity and throttled markets at birth exist but, provided the proposition makes sense, regulators usually find a way for new apps and technologies to come to market.

Olivier Beaujard, vice-president Market Development, Sierra Wireless

Erik Brenneis, Vodafone

Robin DukeWoolley, CEO, Beecham Research

Andrew Parker, project marketing director, Connected Living, GSMA

Regulation therefore won’t be the driver for connected cars, the challenge is to ensure it’s not a barrier.

Regulation has been a fantastic driver for IoT adoption in general but it faces its greatest challenge as connected cars come to market. The safety, security and legal issues these present, especially in this

Gert Pauwels, M2M marketing director, Orange Business

George Malim managing editor

Contributors in this issue of IoT Now We are always proud to bring you the best writers and commentators in M2M and IoT. In this issue they include: Samuel Ropert senior consultant and analyst, IDATE

MANAGING EDITOR George Malim Tel: +44 (0) 1225 319566 g.malim@wkm-global.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER Jeremy Cowan Tel: +44 (0) 1420 588638 j.cowan@wkm-global.com DIGITAL SERVICES DIRECTOR Nathalie Millar Tel: +44 (0) 1732 808690 n.millarr@wkm-global.com

Saverio Romeo principal analyst at Beecham Research

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Cherisse Jameson Tel: +44 (0) 1732 807410 c.jameson@wkm-global.com

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Nick Booth freelance telecoms and IT writer

© WeKnow Media Ltd 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, stored, published or in any way reproduced without the prior written consent of the Publisher.

Bill Zujewski, SVP, IoT Marketing & Strategy, PTC

IoT Now - September / October 2016

COMPANY NEWS NEWS IN BRIEF Vodafone connects new Skoda Kodiaq Vodafone is providing the integrated connectivity for the new Skoda Kodiaq car, launched last week. A specialised SIM card keeps the vehicle connected to the Vodafone network and allows the Skoda Connect service to provide the driver with a range of information including whether the car is locked, its location, remaining driving range and whether the car needs a service.

Silicon Controls and Thinxtra to connect one million oil & gas devices to Sigfox Silicon Controls, a global provider of tank and cylinder monitoring devices, Sigfox, a provider of dedicated communications service for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Thinxtra, the exclusive Sigfox network operator (SNO) for Australia and New Zealand, have announced a strategic partnership agreement.

As part of the agreement, Silicon Controls and Thinxtra will work together to connect Silicon Control’s next-generation remote monitoring equipment to more than one million tanks and cylinders via the long-range, low-power Sigfox network. Already working on opportunities in Europe, Asia Pacific and North America, the scope of the agreement includes the focused development of Silicon Controls’ IoT monitoring equipment, using Sigfox’s connectivity solution and know-how, network expansion, development of joint go-to-market solutions and SLA-based operational support to customers.

By delivering critical tank level and other operational data, remote monitoring of tanks and cylinders

eliminates run-outs and emergency deliveries and improves resource planning and route optimisation. The new Ludovic Le monitoring technology Moan: resulting from this cooperation will address Project demonstrates these specific needs of Sigfox’s seamless the oil and gas industries, IoT connectivity driving down the cost of remote-monitoring equipment, reducing maintenance through extended battery life and lowering monthly communication fees.

Sigfox chief executive, Ludovic Le Moan, said: “Thinxtra and Silicon Controls’ strategic, global partnership demonstrates the seamless IoT connectivity that we provide via local Sigfox network operators to global companies like Silicon Controls, and their customers operating across Europe, Asia, the Americas and, of course, Australasia. Our local SNOs provide quick and simple access to global network services, support and pricing, as well as to their local network.”

“Our work with Sierra Wireless will help drive the benefits of LTE-M to a broad range of businesses and industries,” said

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Chris Penrose, the senior vice president for Internet of Things Solutions at AT&T. “Our customers that use industrial, Smart Cities and wearable solutions are eager to tap into these new tools.”

Vodafone director of IoT Erik Brenneis said “We’re delighted that Skoda, another major Volkswagen Group brand, has followed VW and Audi in partnering with Vodafone as its IoT communications provider. With over 40 million mobile devices, machines and vehicles connected to our network, we’re the IoT communication services industry leader.”

Telit updates IoT portal so users can switch network providers and ensure data continuity Telit, a global enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT), has announced major updates to its IoT Portal. Now, users can switch network providers on the fly, ensure data continuity, search their environments more effectively and benefit from improved event and edge processing. The Telit IoT Portal is a cloud-based IoT subscription service, powered by Telit’s deviceWISE IoT Platform.

The Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) features a low cost pay-as-you-go service plan and lets you get started without any upfront investment. Telit’s do-it-yourself cloud service enables instant access to all the necessary tools and resources for all Telit Services and lets you create and manage your own IoT solutions from a single, intuitive web interface.

AT&T and Sierra Wireless pilot LTE-M modules for IoT to help cut costs Sierra Wireless and AT&T will pilot next generation LTE-M network technologies this autumn. The pilot programme aims to spur LTE network connections for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The Sierra Wireless LTE-M module will support the AT&T pilot with several technology leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area in November. LTE-M technology works specifically with IoT devices, such as smart meters, mHealth and wearables. AT&T plans to make the technology commercially available in 2017.

The technology also monitors the vehicle in real-time, anywhere in Europe, and contacts Skoda’s emergency call centre in the event of an accident.

Chris Penrose: Pilot will drive LTE-M benefits to range of businesses

Sierra Wireless AirPrime LTE-M modules are part of the HL Series, expected be commercially available in the first half of 2017. The HL Series uses the CF3 form factor, which is footprint-compatible across product lines and network technologies.

“Telit brings to market a unique selling proposition of being a single-source for both device connectivity hardware and application enablement middleware,” said Dima Tokar, CTO and head analyst of MachNation. “MachNation sees tremendous value in the use of IoT Application Enablement Platforms (AEPs) as middleware. AEPs reduce the complexity behind the development of scalable, secure, enterprise-grade, endto-end IoT solutions.”

5

MARKET NEWS

Consumers showing less interest in autonomous driving systems, says Strategy Analytics After reaching an all-time high in 2015, consumers’ interest in autonomous driving systems has fallen in 2016, reflecting hesitance about reliance on self-driving technology, according to a recent survey from the In-Vehicle UX (IVX) group at Strategy Analytics.

According to the report (“Consumer Interest in Advanced Safety Features Cools in Europe and US”), consumer interest in a variety of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) has fallen from 2015, though willingness to pay for certain systems like blind spot detection remains strong at low price points.

Derek Viita, senior analyst and report author, commented that although advanced safety systems are spreading into more models, and media coverage of self-driving systems is becoming more widespread, “general consumer interest in many ADAS features has hit a roadblock. Media stories of consumers complaining about – and even deactivating – features such as lane departure warning are clearly having a negative impact.”

Ingenu partners with u-blox to bring global ISM band IoT modules to market Ingenu Inc, which delivers connectivity exclusively to machines, and u-blox, a global provider of wireless and positioning modules and chips, have announced a strategic partnership. The agreement will enable the next generation of Ingenu’s patented RPMA (Random Phase Multiple Access) technology to serve global opportunities in the Internet of Things (IoT) market.

The two companies have agreed that u-blox will develop and manufacture products supporting RPMA technology. RPMA is a low-power wide-area channel access method used exclusively for machine-tomachine (M2M) communication on the Internet of Things (IoT). And, because RPMA utilises the globally available 2.4 GHz ISM band, one radio module can serve applications throughout the globe, providing the scale and cost benefits to enable partners with a profitable option to bring IoT solutions to market.

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Interdigital joins Avanci IoT licensing platform InterDigital a mobile technology research and development company, announced that it has joined Avanci, said to be the industry’s first marketplace for William Merritt: licensing cellular Avanci will standards-essential provide a strong technology for the vehicle for Internet of Things licensing of the (IoT). The licensing IoT platform brings together some of InterDigital’s peers in standards-essential technology leadership, and makes 2G, 3G and 4G standards-essential patents available to IoT players in specific product segments with one flat-rate licence.

“Avanci is a significant step forward in providing access to standardsessential patents for this new market, which is projected to see dramatic expansion in the next few years,” said Lawrence Shay, the senior executive vice president for Future Wireless at InterDigital. “Avanci brings a leadership team with a long track record of success and provides access to a portfolio of technologies.”

The Avanci licensing programmes in specific product segments for the IoT industry will provide access to the entire applicable standards-essential wireless patent portfolios held by all of the platform participants, as well as any additions to their portfolios during the term of the licence.

InterDigital is participating in Avanci licensing programmes that will initially include automobiles and smart meters covering 2G, 3G and 4G standards-essential cellular technologies – technologies where InterDigital is an acknowledged global leader.

“Joining Avanci will provide a strong vehicle for licensing of the IoT, and will layer nicely over our existing core licensing programme addressing handsets and other connected devices like tablets and laptops,” said William Merritt, the president and chief executive of InterDigital. “With a broader licensing programme and our goals with regard to our oneMPOWER and wot.io technology solutions, InterDigital is continuing to execute on its strong core business while exploring new avenues for growth.”

Vodafone completes the world’s first trial of standardised NB-IoT on a live commercial network Engineers from Vodafone and Huawei have completed the first over-the-air connection on a live network using standardised NB-IoT. The commercial trial took place in Madrid, Spain. NB-IoT is an industrial grade Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) network layer that will connect millions of everyday objects and will bring the Internet of Things (IoT) to life.

The connection was successfully completed on 19 September 2016 at 14:11 CET. The engineers used a live 4G base station that supports NB-IoT technology. The connection was made using the 800 MHz licensed spectrum frequency band.

The test is the last important milestone before the commercial launch of NB-IoT in 2017.

The NB-IoT specification was finalised as a global standard by 3GPP in June 2016 and Vodafone is the first to complete a trial of standardised NB-IoT on a live commercial network.

Matt Beal, Vodafone’s Group director of technology architecture and strategy, commented: “This first successful trial of NB-IoT on a live commercial network is a significant technology milestone on the path towards a world with billions of devices connected at extremely low cost with minimal power requirements to mobile networks. NB-IoT has strong support as the industrial LPWA technology to support our enterprise customers. This successful trial demonstrates Vodafone’s commitment and ability to bring this technology to market early in 2017.”

IoT Now - September / October 2016

PRODUCT NEWS NEWS IN BRIEF

Gemalto and Valeo turn your smartphone into a secure car key Automotive supplier, Valeo has partnered with Gemalto, which provides digital security, to ensure the security of its virtual car key system called Valeo InBlue. With Valeo InBlue, drivers can use their smartphone or connected watch to lock, unlock and start their car, control applications and remotely access useful vehicle data using Bluetooth.

This innovation is based on on-board equipment, connected to a Smartphone Development Kit (SDK) hosting a secured virtual car key provided by the Valeo cloudbased platform.

Valeo InBlue uses the Gemalto Allynis Trusted Services Hub (TSH) solution providing secure Over-The-Air (OTA) deployment and lifecycle management of applications and sensitive credentials for vehicles. Thanks to Gemalto security solutions, virtual car keys are securely sent to smartphones and stored with a high level of security that is comparable with current mobile payment solutions being deployed with banks around the world.

Valeo InBlue is compatible with Android or iOS based smartphones on any mobile network.

This easy to implement solution makes the technology deployable on any market.

“In 2015, 1.4 billion smartphones were sold

worldwide and the number of smartwatches is expected to reach 50 million this year, opening the door to a world of possibilities to utilise devices with smart car applications” said Marc Vrecko, president of Valeo’s Comfort and Driving Assistance Business Group. “Gemalto is a pioneer of secure connected car technology and its proven Trusted Service Hub has helped us deliver next generation services with enhanced security for drivers and car manufacturers.”

With Valeo InBlue, authorised users can remotely register new connected devices for use with a vehicle and receive vehicle information such as car location and fuel level, enabling easy secured car sharing and simplified rentals.

“People love their cars as much as their connected devices. The convergence of the two is transforming the automotive sector enhancing performance, safety and driver comfort, and is a stepping stone to new upcoming mobility services starting by easier car rental & sharing” said Frederic Vasnier, executive vice-president Embedded Software and Products, Gemalto. “Valeo InBlue technology defends against key fob hacking thus improving security and convenience for drivers. It is revolutionising car sharing and car rental, establishing an entirely new marketplace that Frost & Sullivan says will be used by 26 million people by 2020.”

Deutsche Telekom integrates Alexa in the Qivicon smart home platform Deutsche Telekom customers will soon be able to run their connected homes via an Alexa skill. Using only their voice they will be able to activate a range of preprogrammed situations and inform their smart home when they are present or absent.

The new service will run on Qivicon, Telekom’s European non-proprietary platform for the connected home. Qivicon has now learned to communicate with Alexa and can enable customers to control their lights, blinds, alarm systems and much more with their voice via Alexa-enabled devices like the Amazon Echo. Magenta SmartHome customers can start using the voice service in their homes as soon as Amazon Echo is available in Germany.

my home to activate the situation off to bed” take charge of all of the preprogrammed functions – even when the smartphone or tablet is not at hand. Customers can also use Alexa to tell their home control system when they are leaving. The command “Alexa, tell my home goodbye” lets the system know, for example, to activate the alarm system and to switch off music or lights around the house.

Selected Telekom Magenta SmartHome customers are taking part in an exclusive Echo test phase in Germany and have been given the chance to try out Magenta SmartHome with Alexa before Echo is launched on the market. These customers will receive a direct invitation to the test and can then register with Amazon.

“With Alexa there are many new opportunities to make the connected home even smarter and more comfortable,” said Christian von Reventlow, chief product and innovation officer at Deutsche Telekom.

“Working with Amazon allows us to share even more innovation with our customers.

We believe strongly in the future of voicecontrolled smart homes.

Users can create as many situations as they want. Then voice commands like “Alexa, tell

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Voice activation via Alexa is coming to Qivicon users

IAR Systems expands ARM tools for IoT developers IAR Systems has announced an expansion of its wide range of supported microcontrollers (MCUs) in the complete development toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM. The updated support includes several MCUs based on ARM Cortex-M3/M4 and ARM Cortex-A15 particularly targeted for connectivity and the Internet of Things, from for example NXP Semiconductors, Silicon Labs, Texas Instruments and Toshiba.

IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM is a complete C/C++ compiler and debugger toolchain for developing embedded applications. With its powerful optimisations technology, the toolchain generates very efficient code.

This makes IAR Embedded Workbench an ideal choice for creating smart, energy-efficient and time-critical applications for the Internet of Things.

Eurotech launches IoT development kits to accelerate app development and deployment Eurotech, a provider of embedded systems, Machineto-Machine (M2M) platforms and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, has announced a series of new IoT Development Kits based on the ReliaGATE family of IoT gateways for industrial and lightly rugged applications.

Eurotech IoT Development Kits provide a complete, highquality design environment allowing engineers to significantly simplify the development process and reduce Time-to-Market.

Depending on the intended IoT application final solution, a developer or solution architect can choose between different hardware platforms, ranging from small low-power ARMbased designs to powerful multi-core, latest-generation Intel Atom gateway platforms, each featuring an excellent price/performance ratio in their respective classes.

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THE CONTRACT HOT LIST

IoT Now September/October 2016 It's free to be included in The Contract Hot List, which shows the companies announcing recent contract wins, acquisitions or deployments. Email your contract details to us now, marked "Hot List" at <j.cowan@wkm-global.com> Vendor/Partners

Client, Country

Product / Service (Duration & Value)

Awarded

AT&T

Biotricity, USA

AT&T selected as preferred partner for healthcare provider, Biotricity’s remote monitoring solutions

8.16

AT&T

Precision King, USA

AT&T Global SIM card and IoT services chosen to enable Soil King system to collect data from the soil and transmit it to Precision King dashboard

9.16

Cisco Jasper

Taiwan Mobile, Taiwan

Cisco Jasper selected to enable enterprise IoT services in Taiwan with Cisco Jasper Control Center

9.16

myDevices

Sigfox, global

myDevices Cayenne IoT platform chosen to deliver enhanced interoperability for Sigfox global ecosystem

8.16

Nokia

M1, Singapore

Strategic partnership announced under which Nokia will help roll-out nationwide commercial NB-IoT network in the first half of 2017

8.16

Orbcomm

Global Fishing Watch, global

Orbcomm satellite technology utilised to monitor fishing vessels and stamp out illegal fishing

9.16

Orbcomm

Barnes Transportation, USA

Orbcomm trailer tracking system selected for transport company’s dry van fleet

8.16

PodsystemM2M

Rewire Security, global

Deal to incorporate multi-network PodsystemM2M SIM cards into Rewire tracking devices

9.16

Semtech

Kotahinet and Loriot, New Zealand

Semtech LoRa technology selected for new LoRaWAN-based network

9.16

Sequans

Autonet Mobile, USA

Sequans LTE Cat-1 Calliope platform chosen to provide LTE connectivity for Autonet Mobile’s Dealer Connect product

9.16

Sierra Wireless

Avtovaz Lada, Russia

Sierra Wireless AirPrime embedded modules and AirVantage IoT platform selected for Lada connected vehicles

9.16

Sierra Wireless

Geely Automotive, China

Sierra Wireless AR series selected by PATEO to provide cellular connectivity for Geely Automotive vehicles

7.16

Telefónica

Akyumen, global

Telefónica to provide IoT services including global SIM service and single platform for provisioning and management of all global SIMs

7.16

Telit

Jooycar, Latin America

Telit IoT cloud platform selected to enable connected car telematics for more precise usage based insurance (UBI) calculation

9.16

TIM

Italian government, Italy

Mobile operator wins five-year licence for controlled waste tracking across Italy

8.16

Vodafone

Skoda, Czech Republic

Czech car maker selects Vodafone for in-car connectivity for its new Kodiaq model

9.16

Vodafone

Wunelli, global

Risk solutions company chooses Vodafone as one of its suppliers for insurance telematics products

8.16

SPONSORED COLUMN

IoT – Have it your way Jack Indekeu, the chief marketing officer of Telit, explains why companies no longer should accept inflexible IoT solutions IoT applications cover a massive range of technical approaches, industries and types of organisations. Some will self-develop their IoT infrastructure, others will completely outsource it and, to a greater extent now, others will tailor their capabilities using a blend of self-developed technology, technology from specialist vendors and services from IoT enablers.

Jack Indekeu, CMO, Telit

Telit is one of only a few suppliers that can offer IoT modules, connectivity and platforms under one roof. What distinguishes us even further, is what we are calling Telit IoT Know-How. This brings together our IoT expertise, resources and support focused on the success of our customers and partners – whether they want to develop everything by themselves or collaborate with our ecosystem in assembling an end-to-end solution. For anyone looking for more of a turnkey solution, Telit can work consulting services that span IoT concept ideation, system architecture, prototype development and full commercial deployments.

The good news is that there are now IoT enablers that can draw on decades of experience to deliver IoT technology, tools and services in ways that match their customers’ needs.

Enabling customers with the opportunity to have it their own way in IoT provides the business transformation, improved operational efficiencies and innovation that are the goals of IoT projects. Only providing parts of the portfolio doesn’t give customers this capability and neither does insisting that customers should buy the entire platform from a single vendor.

All IoT deployments come down to saving money, making money and improving compliance but it is only the flexible vendors that will enable their customers to take the pieces they need and succeed by having it their own way in IoT.

It’s important for vendors to provide customers with what they want and that should extend from provision of a single tool to a complete service running from ideation to full commercialisation of an IoT solution. Something as simple as a cheeseburger can be adapted almost instantly to meet the customer’s individual requirements, so why shouldn’t companies be able to have IoT their own way from their suppliers?

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IoT Now - September / October 2016

WHAT’S HOT ONLINE

www.iot-now.com Ericsson predicts the effects of 5G on the IoT Nick Booth, a freelance IT and communications writer, remembers being told, by a football coach, that there was one player nobody expected to make it as a professional. But not only did that gangly, one-footed hoofer prove Nick Booth them wrong, he went on to become a successful club manager. And now he’s the England football supremo. OK, that’s not saying much these days but nobody can dispute that Sam Allardyce has gone global.

The engineer’s Short Message Service was pretty limited and only intended as a test system, but text messaging was a global commercial success. All the experts predicted that simple systems like Ethernet networking and mainframe computing were doomed. And yet Ethernet triumphed over the fancy footwork of ATM and today the majority of OTT content on mobiles is handled by IBM mainframes. So much for the analysts.

Technologies are the same. The new generations always seem to defy expectations. You never know which will fail, which will do the job and which will get the crowd on their feet.

Read the rest of Nick’s article at www.iot-now.com Search Keyword: Booth

Running out of space? Go 3D Where higher performance is required eMMCbased solid-state storage just isn’t as fast or robust as a full solid-state drive. New 3D Flash memory technology could change all that.

Andrew Pockson

In contrast to earlier NAND Flash memory, where cells are formed on a two-dimensional silicon substrate, this new technology involves stacking Flash memory cells vertically on a silicon substrate to give significant density improvements.

A number of silicon vendors are beginning to manufacture 3D

NAND memories, and several solid state disk drives based on these ICs have been announced already. For example, Toshiba announced the first prototype 3D flash memory technology in June 2007; the company is actively promoting BiCS FLASH to meet demand for larger capacity with smaller size. The company’s latest device incorporates three-bits-per-cell (triple-level cell, TLC) technology and achieves a 256-gigabit (32 gigabytes) capacity, says Andrew Pockson, Divisional Marketing manager, Semiconductors at Anglia.

Read the rest of Andrew’s article at www.iot-now.com Searck Keyword: Pockson

Don’t leave it to IT This two part series by freelance writer and telecoms industry observer, Bob Emmerson, argues that IoT developments shouldn’t be left to the IT guys alone. There was a time, he says, when he could focus on and write about a key technology development like wireless data for a few years and then, when the internet bubble burst, move on for a few more years to Voice over IP followed by Unified Communications.

The financial crisis that started in 2008 led to an arid period, but M2M and the IoT came along and at about the same time technology developments went into overdrive and there’s no sign of a slowdown. Lots to write about but not easy so to focus.

Homes and cities are getting smarter, autonomous vehicles are being trialed; the IoT is delivering tangible benefits across the board and around the world; and the relentless progress in chip technology is set to deliver cost-effective products that are getting smaller and becoming more intelligent. For example, integrating mechanical, chemical and optical functionality is enabling chips to function as wireless IoT platforms. This is a real breakthrough that can boost performance and lower costs by an order of magnitude.

Read both parts of Bob’s article at www.iot-now.com Search Keyword: Emmerson

The importance of network security in the age of the Internet of Things The speed at which the telecoms industry is needing to keep up with rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) is quite alarming.

Robin Kent

Network operators are frantically trying to make sure everything is in place to satisfy the inevitable end user demands and expectations.

We’ve heard about the benefits IoT can bring for not just consumers looking to build their connected homes and drive connect cars, but a range of different industries including

healthcare, manufacturing, and transportation and warehousing, and retail.

We know that capacity and how operators can handle the mass deployment of low speed, low volume IoT networks is a key issue, and will ultimately will determine whether the phenomenon is a success for years to come. However, with this increased traffic comes the major issue of security, says Robin Kent, director of European operations at Adax.

Read the rest of Robin’s article at www.iot-now.com Search Keyword: Kent

IoT Now - September / October 2016

9

PRODUCT NEWS

NEWS IN BRIEF Weightless-P hardware and Weightless Ignition Pack launched at CTIA Weightless SIG has announced the availability of Weightless-P hardware and the pre-launch of a Weightless-P Software Development Kit. The hardware, dubbed the Weightless Ignition Pack, provides Weightless-P network connectivity out of the box.

Fabien Petitgrand, technical representative for the Weightless SIG, explained, “We have been working for more than two years now on a technology that significantly moves the LPWAN game on,” he said, “The Weightless Ignition Pack includes hardware and full Weightless-P software protocol stack combination delivering substantive improvements and competitive advantages over existing IoT connectivity options.”

The Weightless Ignition Pack (list price US$1,500) will be made available as part of a pre-launch offer on the Weightless website with a limited number offered to Weightless Developers free of charge.

Developers should visit www.try.weightless.org/ctia for full details of the offer. The packs include a Weightless-P base station, end device modules, antennas, a full Weightless-P protocol stack for the base station, end device and host as well as all necessary cabling. The pack will enable a Weightless-P IoT network to be deployed ‘out of the box’.

Teradata launches IoT analytics to push slow-moving IoT projects to the fast lane Analytics solutions company, Teradata, has announced four accelerators that it says will speed up the transformation of Internet of Things (IoT) data to actionable insight.

Teradata’s Analytics of Things Accelerators (AoTAs) are derived from field engagements at the world’s largest, most innovative IoT companies in manufacturing, transportation, mining, energy and utilities. The accelerators are comprised of technology-agnostic intellectual property (IP) and professional services, applied approaches proven to reduce implementation cost and risk, accelerate time to value, and drive business returns far greater than the initial investments.

Teradata AoTAs help organisations determine what sensor data to trust and keep, while choosing types and combinations of analytical techniques to best address specific business questions. The accelerators help organisations move from costly experimental projects to enterprise-class solutions scaling across thousands of connected devices and countless assets that result in continuous positive business impact. Specifically, the new Teradata AoTAs include: Condition-Based Maintenance Accelerator, which continuously monitors and analyses asset data from remote devices or equipment at scale to increase availability, improve safety, and reduce costs; Manufacturing Performance Optimisation Accelerator, which

identifies complex production problems across equipment performance and availability for quick corrective action;

Oliver Ratzesberger: Teradata accelerators are already resolving $100m problems

Sensor Data Qualification Accelerator, which automates recommendations on the optimal frequency of sensor readings based on relevant anomaly patterns;

Visual Anomaly Prospector Accelerator, which mines large amounts of multidimensional time series (MTS) data from remotely monitored equipment and devices, and visually helps an end user discover anomaly patterns that frequently precede a key event.

“Teradata AoTAs are already addressing and resolving US$100 million-dollar problems for manufacturers of vehicles, equipment, oil and gas systems, and consumer goods,” said Oliver Ratzesberger, executive vice president and chief product officer, Teradata.

“These challenges represent billiondollar budgets for each company, to be clear on the scale of business value addressed by AoTA. For example, our AoTAs have increased overall equipment effectiveness as much as 85%, while also improving predictability and asset availability. We are seeing a lot of excitement around our Accelerators, because the return on investment is transformational in scope and compelling in business impact.”

ARA-R4 LTE Cat M1 modules developed by u-blox to target IoT applications u-blox, a global provider of wireless and positioning modules and chips, plans to launch modules supporting Category M1 (Cat M1) LTE networks, which will allow a larger number of devices to connect to the Internet of Things (IoT). The first SARA-R4 module developed by u-blox will be available in Q4 2016 targeting mobile network operators in the US market. With the recently launched SARA-N2, the world’s first cellular NBIoT module, the new LTE Cat M1 complements u-blox’s extensive product offering for the IoT. Along with NB-IoT, LTE Cat M1 is part of the new 3GPP Release 13 standard supporting low power wide area (LPWA) technologies in the licensed spectrum and is designed for IoT applications with low to medium data

10

throughput rates, as well as devices that require long battery lifetimes. In addition, M1’s vehicular handover capability delivers the technology necessary to support vehicle, asset and people tracking. It also supports lower latency applications and a data rate of 375 kbps in half duplex mode and 1 mbps in full duplex mode.

The market focus for the LTE Cat M1 technology is extensive and will cover applications in many areas, such as the smart home, security systems, industrial monitoring and control, asset tracking, telematics, connected health, smart metering, smart cities, and wearables.

The SARA-R4 modules follow u-blox’s ‘nested design’ philosophy to maintain form factor and software continuity. This allows customers to easily upgrade their

products with each new generation of u blox wireless modules without having to change their PCB designs. Such easy migration maximises investment return, simplifies logistics and drastically reduces time to market.

The first module from the SARA-R4 series will be available in Q4 2016.

The SARA R4 series

IoT Now - September / October 2016

WHAT’S HOT ONLINE

www.iotglobalnetwork.com IoT to fuel the rise of the machines In a new series of blogs, Rajant Corporation’s director of business development, Todd Rigby, discusses the major role the Internet of Things will play in the rise of industrial robots and autonomous vehicles and the necessity of wireless networks in ensuring the smooth operation of such machines in various industries.

Todd Rigby

It’s been the reality for several decades in industries such as Oil & Gas, Mining, Manufacturing and Logistics

that robots can work longer, harder and smarter than humans.

While the robots and autonomous applications in these industries aren’t as outwardly thrilling as science fiction’s sentient androids, they are highly effective at reducing human costs by taking over mundane, physically taxing or dangerous tasks, streamlining business operations, improving efficiency and ensuring extreme precision.

Read the full series at www.iotglobalnetwork.com. Search Articles with Keyword: Rigby

The automobile as a smart device in mobile lives With the maturity of smart phones, we have seen a previously uni-purpose device – the mobile phone – become a platform for organising our pedestrian lives, writes, Eric Free, the senior vice president for strategic growth at Flexera Software.

Eric Free

Our personal daily experience – previously playing out as a disjointed series of events requiring tasks,

information and communication – has been harmonised by smartphones and applications to create a virtually seamless, efficient and productive rhythm of accomplishment. Need to figure out how to get from point A to B? There’s an app for that on your smartphone.

Need to see in the dark? There’s an app for that too.

Capture photos and videos at the moment you are experiencing them? Simply reach for your smartphone.

Read the rest of Eric’s article at www.iotglobalnetwork.com. Search Articles with Keyword: Flexera

Are ex-hackers the way to keep IoT secure?

Hacker is a dirty word. It conjures up images of someone locked in a dark basement coding into the night and unleashing digital horrors on the unsuspecting, writes Adrian Crawley, the regional director for Northern EMEA at Radware in a two-part blog.

While that may be the stuff of movies, one thing is Adrian Crawley

true, these people have a unique skill; an ability to pinpoint a weakness and write code that will exploit it.

Their coding acumen is extraordinary and they are capable of bringing down multinationals within minutes, or developing long slow burning programmes that are harder to detect. Either way the damage they can do can take a business to the brink.

Read both parts of Adrian’s blog at www.iotglobalnetwork.com.

Search Articles with Keyword: Crawley

CREATE THE FUTURE Over 900 companies have already joined. Has yours?

Showcase your company, products and services for free on the newest platform dedicated to the IoT. Register today to connect, network and interact with your future customers from around the world.

iotglobalnetwork.com

TALKING HEADS

Juergen Weyer is vice president for automotive sales and marketing for Europe at NXP

Lars Reger is chief technology officer for automotive at NXP

Technology transfer makes greater automotive automation a reality As the automotive industry gears up for self-driving and connected cars technology transfer into the market from other areas is accelerating innovation. Neural networks, sensor fusion, robust networking options and heightened security will enable connected cars to offer more automation, Lars Reger and Juergen Weyer tell IoT Now

Lars Reger: If you look at the high level concept of a self driving robot, which is where the automotive sector is heading,

and a device that senses its environment and sends a command to the actuators of a home environment they are, from an architectural point of view, super-similar. The process of sensing, thinking, acting is common whether in a smart meter or a car. Each involves calculations being performed and a simple set of instructions being sent. In cars, those are accelerate, decelerate or change direction; while in a smart meter it’s switching a device so they’re pretty similar. ▼

IoT Now: To what extent do you see technology developed in the automotive sector being transferred to smart grid deployments? There’s clear synergy between vehicular activity and the smart cities concept but do you feel technologies can be complementary?

IN ASSOCIATION WITH NXP IoT Now - September / October 2016

13

TALKING HEADS

In both devices there is the paranoia about errors being made so you have to ensure they are failsafe, but also secure so they can’t be hacked. Therefore you need data security but a lot of it is simple from a chip point of view.

Juergen Weyer: It has to be real-time, safe and secure, protected and always available. If it’s not, the consequences will be that the consumer has no energy arriving in the smart home. In the automotive environment, users won’t be able to travel.

IoT Now: Well publicised hacks of in-vehicle systems, such as the Wired journalist’s Jeep hack, and the generally high consequences of security breaches for connected cars have made vehicle security a high priority. Do you think automotive security and safety technology now leads other sectors and what lessons can be learnt from the automotive market?

LR: You could create extreme dark use cases on the road but also on the grid. Both, therefore, require zero tolerance for failure.

Automotive is in the middle of the security discussion but the car industry is not leading the initiatives. NXP is the second largest supplier in the automotive sector, but we are also the biggest crypto provider worldwide.

We have taken use cases and intellectual property from our sister division in NXP and that has enabled us to jump ahead. Without that, we’d have lost ten years in development and standardisation.

JW: The issue of security in cars has not just happened with the recent hacking reports.

We’ve been looking to make cars secure with immobilisation and to prevent mileage frauds for many years. With our heritage from Freescale we have a lot of experience of security across secure networks, having provided high-end multicore systems, and there are lots of security mechanisms in network architectures that have been included in network processors.

It’s interesting that some technology comes from automotive but is enriched by our crypto and network capabilities.

IoT Now: The stakes are equally high when it

comes to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

What can other sectors learn here and what do you see as the main attributes being developed in the aerospace sector?

LR: We’ve been asked to enable UAV-to-UAV communications because under normal aviation law UAVs are mandated to have anticollision transponders. Those developed by Boeing and Airbus for use in jets typically weigh about 10kg, so there’s an obvious issue if you want to use a UAV to deliver a 3kg parcel because you’ll have to lift and fly about 14kg to do that.

It’s also important that a UAV is able to identify itself. NXP has utilised technology it originally developed to enable ambulances to switch traffic lights to green as they approach lights.

Using the same electronics, a UAV filming a large event can tell anyone that it is a CNN TV UAV allowed to be present. Identification is important because everyone can see the value of knowing a UAV is an Amazon UAV carrying a 3kg delivery rather than a UAV carrying a 3kg bomb.

We have very tiny radar modules which are also being used for anti-collision systems and enabling UAVs to land between buildings and homes. We also have motion detectors which can protect children and pets from the rotor blades of UAVs which are 40-80 cm long and razor sharp. No one wants those near their child or dog.

We are therefore lifting innovation from other areas into UAVs. For example, we’re working on UAV licensing. Today, if I crashed my UAV I could walk away and no one would know I was the pilot. However, authorities are starting to bring in licensing and we have an NFC-based solution that involves a certificate in a mobile phone which the UAV must read before taking off. This means different pilots can fly UAVs and the user is always identified. We think this sort of regulation will be more in demand as UAV usage proliferates.

IoT Now: Much innovation is being seen in the area of sensor fusion. What developments are you seeing and how might these find applications in the automotive sector? ▼

We have very tiny radar modules which are also being used for anti-collision systems and enabling UAVs to land between buildings and homes

IN ASSOCIATION WITH NXP 14

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Regulation will be more in demand as UAV usage proliferates

JW: When we look at the evolution of cars and the innovation from electronics we look at what we call driver systems such as adaptive cruise control, lane departure assist or brake assist. All of these systems help the driver in situations where they are distracted such as when taking a phone call. However, when we get to the next level of automation – which will be highly automated, not autonomous – something has to go into the car that replaces our human senses of seeing and hearing.

We, as humans, have natural sensor fusion but cars will need to combine radar with vision systems such as cameras and lasers. The interesting part comes in bringing all of that data together to a microcontroller with the last part being to make that more intelligent.

The real challenge will be what systems learn to trust and how to fuse all that information to make it descriptive and to give inputs to a real driving situation. We have to bring small technologies from many different areas together to achieve this.

LR: The goal is to build a machine that is always superior to the human capability. Radar, for example, is a system that never gets blinded by sunlight and can look through fog.

The only requirement for developers is not to artificially narrow the view or blind the system, allowing it to misinterpret the situation. The value of sensor fusion comes through taking inputs from a variety of sensors and fusing that before analysing it to ensure a consistent picture is being provided. We’re providing the platform for all of that.

IoT Now: As 5G connectivity continues development how do you see it co-existing with 802.11p? Do you expect services to rely on access to both technologies?

LR: Today you have cellular and 802.11p, which is a peer-to-peer straight communication.

There’s a good need for both. For example, if you’re driving from Hamburg to Munich the road goes through several tunnels and areas of no coverage, but for traffic system updates, cellular is fine. It’s not time-critical and connects to the web to gather the data.

However, for applications such as a project in the Netherlands that involves two trucks

IoT Now - September / October 2016

following each other closely on a virtual towbar at 80 km/h at a distance of 10 metres, the brakes of the following truck are required to be activated within 4ms of the truck in front braking.

This is information that, of course, cannot be delayed or interrupted and the fastest connection is direct from peer-to-peer. Peerto-peer is the only way this application can work because a truck-to base station-to truck communication involves too much delay because of the latency of the mobile network.

The real challenge will be what systems learn to trust and how to fuse all that information to make it descriptive and to give inputs to a real driving situation

A peer-to-peer LTE standard exists but today it involves asking if another truck is permitted to communicate so it wouldn’t work for that close-running braking application. 802.11p is the only technology robust enough.

JW: We’re talking here about safety critical, life-ensuring demands. The latency of information in a cellular network is one aspect and the availability is another. I don’t think we can have safety impacting information delivered using cellular networks. We still get dropped calls and what is required for these applications is 100% availability right now, to the second. Cellular communications can’t do that so we will have co-existing technologies.

IoT Now: What role do you see artificial intelligence playing in automotive applications?

LR: There is huge interest and it is centred around neural networks and self-learning for sensor fusion boxes. Neural networks can do recognition jobs quite well because the sensory information enables them to locate objects. Cars, while driving, are getting data using fixed recognition algorithms and makers such as BMW or GM or Toyota are using some form of AI to report back on that data. The industry in general is learning how neural networks should be programmed.

JW: We still have to recognise we’re in an automotive environment that has very stringent regulatory and performance requirements. We’re providing the industry with robust technologies for the 15 year relationship of a car and its driver that can work at extreme temperatures. If you don’t address these requirements at the design stage you can’t get to the level required.

www.nxp.com

15

DIGITAL BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

Can IoT be enterprises’ digital transformation platform?

IoT platforms and connected apps are helping to deliver that digital business transformation. Antony Savvas looks at how organisations can do it Digital transformation is something an increasing number of organisations are now trying to get a grip on. Digital business transformation includes greater connectivity of processes and the wider use of analytics to improve products and services, often using the cloud.

Ian Hughes, an analyst for the Internet of Things at 451 Research, says: “IoT is a key part of digital business transformation as it provides the scope for detailed instrumentation, feeding to analytics and importantly provides the return feedback link to apply an action. For product manufacturers it starts to offer an opportunity to gain continuous feedback. The instrumentation gives a greater resolution than previously, where only quarterly sales figures and customer surveys were possible.”

Insurance Craig Foster, managing director of HomeServe Labs, says: “The IoT is transforming perceivably less exciting industries like insurance into a digital, forward-thinking, technology-based industry which puts consumers’ needs at the heart of it.”

“Unidentified water leaks in homes, for example, are the single biggest cause of claims on home insurance policies and more

16

is paid out on this issue than for anything else.

With 25% of the underlying cost of your home insurance used to cover the damage caused by the escape of water, the benefits of using a leak detection device are huge.”

HomeServe Labs has launched LeakBot, a smart leak-detection device that enables insurers to be more proactive in helping protect their customers’ homes, rather than simply assessing for risks and paying when things go wrong. LeakBot uses intelligent technology to detect water leaks in the home from just one smart device, without the need for professional installation. The device helps insurers reduce underwriting costs, and will also help drive customer satisfaction, says Foster.

“The IoT is changing the way people interact with their homes,” he adds. “All of a sudden, thanks to connected devices, homes can have conversations with their inhabitants. So if something is wrong, things can be repaired quickly rather than accumulate into a big problem.”

Fleet management Arval, a fleet management vehicle supplier, is using a Sierra Wireless IoT cloud solution to manage its vehicles via onboard telematics as part of a new pay-as-you-go hiring model.

Arval uses Sierra Wireless AirVantage cloud and AirPrime embedded modules. AirVantage

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HomeServe Labs has launched LeakBot, a smart leak-detection device that enables insurers to be more proactive in helping protect their customers’ homes

IoT Now - September / October 2016

is an integrated platform of services that enables organisations to quickly build and deploy IoT solutions, manage devices, subscriptions and application data through a single interface worldwide.

Arval and its customers can monitor and manage a vehicle’s usage through on-board telematics connected to a cellular network.

Targeted at enterprise fleet managers, the service enables them to track mileage, fuel consumption, driver behaviour and maintenance, as well as utilise usage-based insurance (UBI) models for cost savings.

“We were looking to enhance our customer service offering,” says Paul Gourlet, technology director at Arval. “We have the global scale we needed, delivering a full solution that integrates the devices, the device data, our mobile network operator’s infrastructure and our back-end IT systems.

This solution vastly simplifies the process of bringing new services to market and will enable us to expand rapidly into new countries.”

Retail One retail expert expects IoT video cameras in shops to play a big part in their digital transformation. Cliff Crosbie, senior vice president for global retail at Prism, has worked for and developed in-store experiences for top brands including Apple, Ikea, Nokia, Nike and Habitat. Prism provides analytics software used mainly by retailers in 80 countries.

Crosbie says: “IoT’s greatest potential to digitally transform retail is by making omnichannel a reality. For many retailers omnichannel is just a fancy buzzword for selling things through both shops and online, but the ‘special sauce’ is joining the channels together and making them add up to more than the sum of their parts.”

He says that if retail brands use their video surveillance cameras as IoT sensors, they can radically change the role their physical shops play, from being stand-alone profit and loss centres to helping boost sales through mobile, online and other channels. Which is how omni-channel should work.

With cameras deployed as IoT sensors that track people's presence and movement, and linked to analytics software, retailers can view path-maps and heat-maps showing what visitors do when they come through the door.

For instance, the cameras could record the people that walk to a retro fridge display and linger there. And the analytics software can associate that activity with an online spike in sales of those fridges by people who viewed

IoT Now - September / October 2016

them in-store – justifying the marketing spend on that high street display.

The showroom manager can also see which displays and items are visited frequently but don't produce sales – high touch/low sales.

This invariably happens, says Crosbie, due to some fixable problem with pricing, quality or size, that, if corrected fast, can result in more sales.

All this means that video IoT can give physical retailers exactly the same data that ecommerce sites generate, breaking down data silos across retail channels and finally making omnichannel and digital business transformation possible.

Gas

Ian Hughes: IoT provides the scope for detailed instrumentation and the return feedback link to apply an action

Nube has the first cloud-based IoT solution for monitoring LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) levels and consumption for consumers.

It includes sensors installed on the tank and mobile and web applications used by consumers and energy companies to monitor tank levels and conditions, order refills, complete payment, and analyse data from the connected tanks throughout Mexico and Latin America.

For consumers, this provides a simple, stressfree method of doing business. It eliminates the frequent issue of either running out of the gas they use for cooking and heating, or being forced to order refills based on a blind estimate of the tank level.

For gas companies, knowing the level of gas in each customer’s tank enables better planning of gas purchasing and the ability to optimise scheduling and delivery operations.

This leads to what the company describes as “significant” cost savings, efficient cash flow management and superior customer service.

Paul Gourlet: IoT solution vastly simplifies the process of bringing new services to market

Chris Gnanakone, co-CEO for Nube, says: “Our IoT and SIM technology with quality of service intelligence is a big benefit for our business where we need to maximise coverage across multiple network operators.”

The cloud is absolutely key in terms of enabling IoT, as it can facilitate not only the integration of the aforementioned technologies, but also the exchange of data that is so central to IoT. It is not only a very efficient hosting environment, it is also possibly the only affordable way to realise IoT. Matt Clarke, chief technology officer at Amaze, says: “IoT is set to be more disruptive and far reaching than many realise. If approached correctly, it can transform entire business models and lead to unprecedented competitive advantage. It can revolutionise customer experience, streamline operations, completely alter product and service design and deliver new business models and revenue streams.”

Matt Clarke: IoT can transform entire business models and lead to unprecedented competitive advantage

17

INTERVIEW

Antennas are essential elements for the Internet of Things Among the multitude of attention and discussion that surrounds the Internet of Things (IoT), the subject of antenna performance is not always properly considered. Sometimes, this lack of attention is driven by certain interpretations of IoT, based on which of several low cost devices are close to each other with no need for powerful transceivers. Even in those scenarios, antenna performance remains very important because of issues such as noise, fading and the need for efficiency. Therefore, antennas are an essential element for the IoT. In order to understand about antennas for the IoT, Saverio Romeo, the principal analyst for Internet of Things, wearable technologies, smart solutions and IoT policy at Beecham Research, met Sifiso Gambahaya, the engineering manager and senior antenna engineer EMEA for Taoglas Antenna Solutions. Taoglas is a well known advanced antenna products and RF service provider. The company is headquartered in Ireland, but has global coverage with design centres in Germany, Taiwan and the USA, the latter two locations also house the production facilities Saverio Romeo: I’m raising what is probably an obvious question, but why is antenna performance important for the Internet of Things?

Sifiso Gambahaya: There are several answers to this question. However, an example of an IoT application can help explain the situation.

Currently, smart metering is a very popular application in the IoT market. Smart metering projects involve large deployments of smart meters. For smart metering, efficiency and the radiation pattern of the antenna at both the meter side and the base station side define how many smart meters one base station can cover.

With Taoglas’ solutions you can use less base stations to build out your wireless smart meter network, and your smart meter points themselves have more reliable reception, especially in challenging areas such as basements or in water pits. Taoglas solutions can also guarantee high performance in different contexts, in sparse rural areas as well as in densely populated urban areas.

SR: How would you describe Taoglas’ offering for IoT? SG: We cover all the needs in terms of forms of wireless connectivity. For example, in the case of cellular communications, our PA.25A Anam is a compact and robust SMD PIFA 2G/3G hexa-band antenna, offering superb efficiency of up to 69% in a tiny form factor of just 35x6x5mm. The latest extension to the Anam series, the PA26.A, also covers the 4G LTE bands. For terminal mount solutions within the 4G bands we offer the patent pending TG.35.8113 Apex II. This hinged ultrawideband dipole antenna is designed to cover all cellular, ISM and Wi-Fi frequencies between 6986000MHz and is ground plane independent. It achieves efficiencies of up to 84% and is an ideal solution for any device requiring high and reliable

performance. We also offer a range of flexible PCB antennas, which can adhere directly to glass and plastic surfaces. Our Pantheon and Spartan ranges of wideband MIMO LTE external antennas can also be used for smart-metering solutions.

These antennas are designed to be mounted on a flat ground plane or pole mounted on a metal bracket.

SR: LPWAN technologies are currently defining the low data IoT space. What do you offer for those technologies?

SG: Our LPWA antennas are designed to meet the EIRP requirements for ISM and are typically used in SigFox and LoRa networks throughout the world. In fact, we have the largest market share for smart meter LTE embedded antennas on the market in the U.S. and have world class test facilities in San Diego. Our omni-directional helical antenna, the HA.10, is a quarter wave monopole offering, operating at 169MHz, while our FXP280 is a flexible circuit antenna which operates at 868MHz, a frequency which is flexible enough to fit a multitude of designs.

Our terminal mount omni-antennas, ideal for base stations, deliver maximum coverage across these networks and provide peak gain of between 312dbi. Our first to market OMB.868.B12F21 Barracuda is an omni-directional IP65 waterproof, outdoor antenna providing peak gain of 12dbi operating at the 868MHz band. This UV resistant fibreglass antenna provides the largest coverage area for Low Power Radio and mesh networks and its robust frame means it is ideal for harsh weather.

SR: Smart metering and smart utility are frequent terms in your descriptions. Are those key IoT application areas of interest for Taoglas?

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Our LPWA antennas are designed to meet the EIRP requirements for ISM and are typically used in SigFox and LoRa networks throughout the world

IN ASSOCIATION WITH TAOGLAS 18

IoT Now - September / October 2016

SG: Taoglas has plenty of experience in a variety of IoT applications including telematics, automotive, wearables, medical devices, remote monitoring and in applications such as highspeed video broadcasting. However, at the moment, we see a strong attention on smart metering in the market place. Therefore, we provide an extensive range of terminal and embedded smart metering solutions across the LTE and the LPWA bands. These embedded and terminal mounted antennas are used on the end customer side in areas such as an LTE router or the smart metering device itself, while larger omni-directional antennas are used as coverage antennas at the base station.

SR: Do you offer specific services to your customers such as technical support?

SG: We offer a wide range of value added services to help ensure that our utility customers make informed decisions when choosing the best antenna for their device. As part of our ISA.10 service, we review customer requirements with them to understand design priorities and to define clear performance requirements. We delve into customers’ 3D design and help choose the correct solution and suggest an efficient integration plan. Once a physical product, with our antenna, has been created we offer the ISA.12 service. This involves reviewing the transmission line design integrity as well as PCB layer stack-up.

Once the design is wholly sound, we offer a testing and matching/tuning service. We offer these critical testing services as a value added services to the actual antenna products we supply.

SR: Testing is a critical aspect for antenna performance. What do you do in that regards?

SG: At Taoglas, we understand the importance of reliability testing and a large number of the products mentioned are manufactured in TS16949 and ISO 9001 certified facilities and are RoHS compliant. We have four world class R&D testing facilities across our locations in Taiwan, Germany, Ireland and San Diego in the U.S. We are constantly testing our antennas for reliability

IoT Now - September / October 2016

and stressing them to breaking point to understand the conditions and environments that our products can withstand.

SR: Can you describe the key features of your R&D testing facilities?

SG: Our thermal chamber provides thermal cycling from -40°C to +85°C for 30 times over ten days, which follows the ISO16750 specifications. It can go up to +125°C if needed.

Our UV and salt spray test ensures our housing and product operate as designed over an extended period of time. We also test for ingress protection in an IP67 tank. In fact, we run a sequence of tests from the thermal chamber then to the vibration table and then dunk it into the IP67 tank checking the return loss at every step to ensure the product has not failed. We have a method for testing our large antennas for wind loading and an outdoor antenna mast where we mount our antennas to test for ruggedness against harsh outdoor environments to measure weather effects such as rain, wind, pollutants that can also have an impact on the product.

Sifiso Gambahaya: We’re constantly testing our antennas and stressing them to breaking point

All five of our anechoic chambers provide passive and active testing, with ranges from 400MHz to 18 GHz. We take customers' products and carry out full active testing, tuning and layout changes where necessary for GNSS, LTE, cellular and WiFi. We test to pre-certification levels for operator requirements such as PTCRB or AT&T Verizon.

SR: It seems that research and development is very important for Taoglas. Which are your next steps in terms of innovation?

SG: We are designing next generation 5G antennas which will be capable of supporting more devices and provide greater capacity than the current LTE MIMO antenna technologies. This will enable the connection of more devices. We are also looking at radar antennas for a variety of applications. We aim to have fully integrated radar RF front end system along with the antenna as a single solution.

www.taoglas.com

19

INTERVIEW

Different technologies are required to support the diversity of applications that will make the IoT market Robin Duke-Woolley, the chief executive of Beecham Research, met Thomas Seiler, the chief executive of u-blox, a provider of wireless semiconductors and modules for consumer, automotive and industrial markets, at the CTIA show in September 2016. They discussed emerging low power wireless technologies, the direction of the industry and u-blox’s future plans

Thomas Seiler: Yes. We all have our different strategies. We want to stay with our core technology. Insofar as we are different we are not only making modules; we also make chipsets so we own the core technology for whatever we do for GNSS, for Cellular, and for Short Range. We want to do that because our aim is to put the technologies into the hands of our customers who buy the modules, but we also want to supply

technology that we understand and can both support and make for the long run for these customers.

If you buy chipsets from a third-party and then they decide on what is finally the functionality, you are not providing your customers with any differentiation. That is not what we want to do and we learned that very early in the life of our company. That was the key reason why we started to make the technology ourselves.

We have the capability to make integrated circuits and I think that’s very viable and valuable for the market. Of course our customers depend on us and they want to be sure in the long run it’s also

▼

Robin Duke-Woolley: u-blox’s cellular IoT module business has been growing rapidly over the last few years, but unlike your competitors in this market you have decided not to go up the solution stack to connectivity and IoT platform services?

IN ASSOCIATION WITH U-BLOX 20

IoT Now - September / October 2016

RDW: You’ve taken more of an intercept strategy for cellular modules, because you’ve not gone substantially into 2G and not that much into 3G. Is your main focus on 4G and beyond 4G? TS: That’s correct when we look at that today. Of course, we have not been building cellular modules for twenty years – we only started doing so in about 2010 and by that time 2G and 3G were well established so that it did not make sense to invest in chipsets for technology that had already matured. To go for LTE was the right decision in 2012 for us so we can create solutions for the categories of releases that LTE is going to offer.

RDW: You’ve recently announced an agreement with Ingenu, so does that mean you’re committed to proprietary solutions as well as to more standard solutions?

TS: First and foremost, we are a company making wireless technology. Cellular modules have their rules and regulations, in particular certification – effectively standards, that are part of the game but as things are evolving there are of course solutions that are more proprietary that do not follow these rules which are looking to become leaders in the market. We cannot know what the final landscape will look like – nobody knows that. So for sure, there are very viable solutions that are outside of the licensed spectrum and we just want to provide a set of solutions to our customers, a range of possibilities so that they can make what is best for whatever their application is. This is the reason why we also reached agreement to make RPMA products for Ingenu.

RDW: So are you just going to make products for Ingenu, or are you considering others like LoRa, or SigFox? TS: Today we have announced Ingenu and nothing else. Whether they are the most successful or not is for the market to decide. We believe, technology-wise, that they have a lead, because the coding scheme is very robust and they have the capability of FOTA (Firmware Over-The-Air) that is of course a very essential feature to maintain the system. This is not delivered by the competing solutions in the unlicensed space.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Today we have announced Ingenu and nothing else.

Whether they are the most successful or not is for the market to decide

RDW: Then there are Cat M1 and Cat NB-1. Do you think that those will be successful in the market? Are you looking to provide for those in competition with Ingenu products?

TS: Yes – they will be successful. Most M2M solutions can be very well maintained with the capability of 2G. But now with LTE, I think that becomes even more interesting because the various categories respond better to what real applications need with regard to data throughput capacity and latency as well as power consumption. So I would say that solutions based around LTE or LTE-M have a bright future and a better one than 2G or even 3G can deliver, because LTE is made for data transmission – not for voice.

RDW: How do you see the low band, the low power, wide area market taking off? Do you think that’s going to be a very rapid development?

Could it be something that will surpass the standard cellular module market?

TS: There’s a good chance that this is going to grow rapidly. I think LPWA has distinct features I’ve mentioned already – low power, very good range – and of course cost-wise it’s interesting. So you can deploy solutions that until now you were unable to deploy. For example, you can easily place fire detector sensors into the forests that live for ten years from a battery. You cannot make such a solution available with 2G or 3G. So there is a lot more that is now feasible and doable.

RDW: What do you think will happen with SIM cards when Cat M1 and Cat NB-1 are taken up in volume? Do you think that we’ll continue to have SIM cards or do you think the market will move more towards embedded SIM? TS: Most likely it will all be embedded SIM. Of course the SIM card is a nice thing to help providers own the customer – that’s what the operators like – but in my opinion, it’s inconceivable if these go into much broader scope and much higher quantities. There is also the price point where the embedded SIM is cheaper and of course much more appropriate than a SIM card and its holder. The world will change to integrated solutions.

RDW: Can you say a bit more about where you think the sort of applications are for Cat M1 and Cat NB-1 that is different from the cellular that we’ve had so far? There’s a lot of talk about very high volumes of IoT products out there, but we’re not going to do that if we just replace the current

▼

something that they can depend on because we make the technology right and because we make a long-term roadmap. That of course takes their wishes into account and their needs. Doing that has worked out very nicely for us and our customers over the last twenty years.

21

INTERVIEW

Thomas Seiler: We want to give customers a range of possibilities so they can make what is best for whatever their application is

TS: There are so many things around us that are not connected. That of course feeds the hypothetical market for things that are connected to the internet and finally it’s a matter of price points that will lead to decisions about where does it make sense and where does it not make sense.

Does it make sense to connect that lamp above us or does it not make sense? Does it make sense to connect this switch on the wall or not?

Of course, we have seen the technology price points always going down and the penetration increasing. In the end it’s the contribution of everybody in this industry that finally makes all these solutions and I think it’s all about the solutions for delivering all these numbers. It is that there are so many different solutions that will make the market.

RDW: What do you think is realistic as a cost target for these low cost modules? Also, do you think that we’ll have Cat M1 and Cat NB-1 in the same module or do you think that they’ll be in separate modules?

TS: Of course you can always combine them into one module but whether that makes sense for cost efficiency is debatable. An application has a certain requirement for bandwidth or for latency and that

is fine and therefore there are good reasons why you need both. People say they only want one module for covering five different types of applications but that is rather unlikely. It is not a single technology.

Of course it is conceivable that some technologies can be highly integrated, like Wi-Fi, and there is a need to reach these sorts of price points.

RDW: What sort of price point do you think is viable for that technology?

TS: Probably $1.00 to $2.00; in that sort of range.

RDW: When you’re in the market are you talking to end-users like auto OEMs and others about their requirements?

TS: We talk to end-users as well but mainly the OEMs to find out what their requirements are and what their future need is. We of course have roadmaps for those discussions and those are essential for long-term success. About one third of our business is in the auto space and by that we mean first of all electronics for the aftermarket. We have a very strong position in everything that is positioning in the car but more and more we have cellular and short range.

RDW: Which sectors in particular represent your main business?

TS: First of all, more than 60% of our business is in industrial sectors. Probably a third is in vehicles,

▼

cellular modules with cheaper ones in the same sort of products. Do you have a view about that and what sort of applications are likely to come about?

IN ASSOCIATION WITH U-BLOX 22

IoT Now - September / October 2016

We do about half of our billings in Asia and about a quarter each in the Americas and Europe. There is a very wide mix of applications and we have a high diversity of customers. We have 5,700 customers worldwide

primarily after-market solutions for telematics, for insurance and for asset security. We have a strong presence for everything that is on wheels, but we are equally well-positioned for infrastructure. We say that we make solutions for the things that really matter, because infrastructure is necessary for mobility and requires high quality and high functionality and this is what we are positioning for in the market.

RDW: Which are the most important markets for you, geographically?

TS: We do about half of our billings in Asia and about a quarter each in the Americas and Europe.

There is a very wide mix of applications and we have a high diversity of customers. We have 5,700 customers worldwide. We are not dependent on one customer â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no one is the big one. The biggest is 8% of the business.

RDW: Do you provide a lot of technical support to your customers?

TS: Absolutely. Our sales force is divided between commercial and technical people on a 1:1 ratio so we make sure our customers have very good support. We help them with design and moving them into production flawlessly because it is in our interest of course for customers to go quickly to production.

RDW: Is it fair to say that you initially established

IoT Now - September / October 2016

your customer base through positioning products and cellular modules that have been added to that rather than creating a customer base for them from scratch?

TS: Of course, we started with GNSS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that was our first activity. That was how the company was founded and anything we have added was a new line of products or a new technology that was nicely cross-selling into the existing customer base.

So we have maintained the customer base but we have delivered more and more different solutions and products into their hands RDW: How do you see the future?

TS: I think what has been the past I now also see as the future. By that I mean that we will continue the same as we have always been, growing on a large scale through many ways and solutions and applications. As a result, we are becoming more diversified. We are not dependent on one outcome or one hyped or killer application but rather being very well connected to many different areas where our technology applies. I think our future growth comes from the continued development of making our technology better and making it even better tuned to our customers. Also, we expect to stay very much in hardware and not move into services or software. We will not compete with our customers.

We are a maker of technology â&#x20AC;&#x201C; we make it in the form of chipsets and we package it into modules for easy access to our customers. This is our role.

www.u-blox.com

23

EXPERT OPINION

Smart energy helps consumers save money, energy providers make money and companies achieve compliance Smart energy relies on Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to change the consumption habits of users and enable energy providers to gain efficiencies while boosting their environmental credentials, writes Emmanuel Maçon-Dauxerre

Smart energy encompasses the entire energy supply chain, ensuring the right amount of energy is generated to meet demand and fuel isn’t wasted by creating oversupply. To achieve this a greater understanding of the consumption profiles of users is needed and this goes hand-inhand with a new approach to energy pricing which will see a move a way from the traditional fee per unit model that has served the industry for decades.

Many nations across the world are well advanced in their programmes to roll out smart meters.

These are multipurpose because they enable the user to have greater control and understanding of their consumption so they can modify their behaviour

Instead of that, we will see pricing based on peak demand emerge so users are incentivised to run washing machines or charge their electric cars at off-peak times. Using such methods to flatten out peaks and troughs in demand will integrate well with the often-bursty nature of energy supply generated from renewables.

The variables involved make this a much more complex industry than the traditional energy supply market which simply piped gas to your home or brought electricity from the local power station to your premises via a cable. Now, each home may be a net producer of energy and sell energy back to the grid during the day but require energy from the grid to handle the power load of charging two electric cars ready for the morning commute.

Applying intelligence Smarts therefore are needed to gather, collate and analyse all the data. Smart grids, which will

help ensure supply remains available, will handle some of this but as you get closer to the point of use, grid data is less valuable as the individual demands of customers need to be addressed.

What energy providers need is a clear picture of the needs of the user and the capabilities of their home’s system and this is where the role of smart meters becomes significant.

Many nations across the world are well advanced in their programmes to roll out smart meters.

These are multi-purpose because they enable the user to have greater control and understanding of their consumption so they can modify their behaviour, perhaps turning to IoT to enable smart thermostats or other home automation apps. In this way they can help users save consumption and thereby save money.

In addition, such meters can be used to help energy providers plan. They can use smart meter data to bill accurately for consumption but also to ensure they scale energy availability to meet specific demand profiles.

The value of data As energy suppliers move away from the actual supply of energy being their key source of profit, the data that users generate provides a means for them to provide a range of value-added services and applications to users – naturally for a fee. This incremental additional revenue will be critical in offsetting lost profitability from the core, traditional business. We could see energy providers offer home management apps to control temperatures or switch off appliances when consumers are absent. This greater control will be vital for enabling users to take advantage of more flexible pricing. Setting washing machines to run in the night is the classic example but new use cases such as charging devices and vehicles are emerging. ▼

With Navigant Research reporting that global smart energy for smart cities technology revenue is expected to grow from $7.3 billion in 2015 to $20.9 billion in 2024 and ABI Research estimating that smart meter rollouts, led by energy and water utilities, will result in a global installed base of more than 1.1 billion smart meters within the next five years, it’s clear that the smart energy concept is emerging into a market reality.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH TELIT 24

IoT Now - September / October 2016

The author, Emmanuel MaรงonDauxerre, is the vice president of business development for EMEA sales at Telit

Why smart meters really count To achieve the smart energy benefits, reliable connections to smart meters are required. It is too complex for smart meters to rely on home Wi-Fi since this will require millions of meters to be integrated to constantly changing domestic broadband providers. In addition, being in control of the connection enables meter owners to have greater control of the data and services.

To keep this control and manage the costs of smart meter deployments, energy firms are relying on wireless technologies to support smart meters. More and more deployments utilise cellular networks because of the coverage available but there are instances of smart meter projects using narrow band wireless connections.

It is unclear currently what future bandwidth needs smart meters may require. Today, they are relatively limited since sharing lines of data with a centralised data hub is not a challenging amount of data for even a 2G cellular network connection to transmit. However, as apps become richer, there is a strong likelihood that higher throughputs may be required.

Regulation drives adoption Although there is clear interest in managing energy consumption more efficiently among consumers and enterprises, the scale and scope of smart energy projects should not be underestimated. There are billions upon billions of meters in the world, all of which will require updating. Governments and regulators see smart meters as a means to meet their environmental goals and in many regions smart meter deployment is already mandated for new construction and scheduled for retrofit environments.

This is creating momentum across the smart

IoT Now - September / October 2016

energy sector. With government-legislated smart meter deployments set, providers need to address how to generate revenue from their investment in smart meters. A virtuous circle is being created in which enforced smart meter investment creates a greater need for smart energy apps that will create new sources of revenue, thereby eventually making the business case for smart meters appealing.

The dawn of smart energy is here and, while there is a long way to go to maturity, a stable of tried and tested technologies exists from the meters, through the connectivity to the data analytics applications. A greater range of attractive consumer-oriented applications is required to truly deliver on the promise that smart energy holds of enabling companies to make money from smart energy. In addition, energy suppliers need to become more dynamic in their utilisation of smart meter functionality to enable new business models, pricing and services. However, when more innovation hits the market and the installed base of smart meters grows further, smart energy projects will really start to hit prime time.

www.telit.com

25

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ANALYST REPORT

SMART ENERGY Regulation, utilities, cleaner & greener

CONTENTS

33

GLOBAL CONSUMPTION 2006-2030 678

700 637

586 600

562 508

472

500 400 300 200 100 0

2006

35

2010

2015

2020

2025

2030

SMART METER DEPLOYMENT

ANALYST REPORT

1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400

30 A market picking up momentum

200 0 2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

31

Regulation-led development

32 The role of utility companies

39

COMPANY PROFILES

33 Market analysis: Cleaner and greener 35 Prospects: Some future paths 36 EU policies and funding in smart grids 37 Beyond pilot projects

IoT Now - September / October 2016

29

ANALYST REPORT

The author of this exclusive report is Samuel Ropert, a senior consultant and analyst at IDATE

Smart energy

A market picking up momentum The strong impetus for smart metering remains regulation as it has from the very beginning. Various countries have thus put in place targets for the nationwide deployment of of smart meters, although the approach differs from country to country. The utility incumbents are also crucial for the development of smart metering, particularly with the choice of technologies and the approach of implementation.

Although some delays have been observed in a number of deployments, the overal targets are expected to be met as planned. The global installation of smart meters will grow at a stable pace, up from roughly 550 million in 2014 to a total of more than 1.6 billion – across electricity, gas and water – in 2020, at a CAGR of 19.6%. The electricity sector is identified as the core industy for deployment.

As the energy domain is transforming itself to adapt to new challenges such as renewables, electric vehicles and decentralisation, the evolution of smart metering will be seen in various use cases with smart grids. Smart grids, the energy networks that coordinate supply and demand, imply new possibilities both in terms of technical capacities and business offerings, including real-time reconfiguration of the topology of the energy network and alternate pricing mechanisms.

Market development Overview Most countries have announced plans for rollouts – although they may not have started yet, with most setting a target of 95% or more meters to be made smart. This rings true for most EU nations, although some – such as

30

Poland and Finland – have targeted 80% which is the minimum requirement set by the European Commission.

Table 1: Summary of smart meter rollout targets for select countries Country

Targets

Austria

Electricity: 95% by 2020

Regulation-led?

Yes

China

Electricity: 300 million by 2015 (State Grid Corporation of China)

No (but State Grid Corporation is state owned)

Denmark

Electricity: 100% by 2020

Yes (but 60% already smart before regulation)

Finland

Electricity: 80% by 2020

Yes

France

Electricity: 96% smart by 2020 (35 million) Gas: 95% smart by 2020

Yes

Germany

Electricity: 15% to be made smart

No (market liberalised)

Greece

Electricity: 100% by 2020

Yes

Ireland

Electricity: 100% by 2020 Gas: 100% by 2020

Italy

Electricity: already 96%

Yes (although Enel rolled out before regulation)

Japan

Electricity: 59 million by 2020

Yes (based on liberalisation)

Netherlands

Electricity: 100% by 2020 Gas: 100% by 2020

Yes

Norway

Electricity: 100% by 2020

Yes

Yes

Poland

Electricity: 80% by 2020

Yes

Spain

Electricity: 13 million by 2018

Yes

Sweden

Electricity: already 100%

Yes (indirectly)

UK

Electricity and gas: 100% by 2019 (53 million)

Yes

USA

Electricity: 45 million deployed so far, 100% by 2020

Yes (varies according to state)

Source: IDATE

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Germany stands out as rather different in comparison to the other nations. Whilst most countries have set national targets close to 100%, Germany has no such targets but is rather relying on utilities’ own initiatives as the market has already long been liberalised. There is, however, regulation in Germany that all new buildings must be equipped with smart meters, and that actual consumption readings must be made available if requested, although a cost may be charged.

It is also worth noting that the development of smart metering is highly heterogenous across different utility markets. Electric smart meters are the priority for most countries, with many having plans for electricity but fewer for gas. For most, water meters are barely on the agenda.

The UK is a rarity here with plans to roll out both electricity and gas meters to connect to the same communication hub within households; this is largely possible due to the same dominant utility, British Gas, being able to provide both electricity and gas.

In summary, two main factors decide on the development of smart metering, which varies from one country to another: regulation and the utilitiy industries’ states.

Should regulation exist, then there is no alternative. If there is no mandatory rollout by regulation, then the choice comes down to the utilities themselves whose decision will be based on costs and area characteristics.

smart meters back in 2006, to minimise the level of electricity fraud in addition to the expected cost-cutting benefits.

Regulation also impacts the choice of smart metering technologies in some coutries. There are a variety of possibilities available for connectivity technolgies, allowing smart meters to communicate directly with the utilities and remove the need for human intervention. In a nutshell, the connectivity in smart metering is generally structured in two tiers: • HAN/Last mile: data collected from the smart meters is aggregated at a local point or HAN (home area network) because this connectivity involves frequent collection – hourly, per minute or per second – and in small-size packets which is poorly suited to direct WAN (wide area network) transport because of pricing issues.

• WAN/Backhaul transport: the data aggregated through the last-mile connection is then transported over the WAN to the centralised automated meter management information system of the operator, often referred to as a concentrator.

In the UK, regulation has now been introduced for all electricity and gas meters to be made smart by 2019, with the technologies and providers to be used being specified: Zigbee for the HAN, the Arqiva long-range radio solution for WAN in northern Britain and the Telefónica/O2 cellular solution for WAN in other regions.

Regulation-led development There is a close connection between regulation and smart meter rollouts. This is in particular the case with the electricity meter market in Europe. According to the Electricity Directive (2009/72/EC) of the European Commission, at least 80% of consumers have to be equipped with smart meters by 2020, subject to positive economic assessment of all the long-term cost and benefits, to be carried out by each member state. The majority of European countries thus established the government plans.

Sweden and Italy are two exceptions that have completed the smart electricity meter rollout without direct pressure from European Commission regulation. Sweden turned its electricity meters smart, subject to the Electricity Act that enforced monthly readings for all customers from 2009; while in Italy, Enel completed the installation of 27 million

IoT Now - September / October 2016

By contrast, in Germany, there are no specific regulations, as of yet, regarding the technology to be used, and no regulations which require replacing current dumb meters with smart ones either, meaning various technologies are used for both HAN and WAN. Only the latest amendment of the law concerning the economy and energy, known as the EnWG Law, requires that all new meters installed since 2010 are smart, but this is not compulsory.

When it comes to the USA, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), more commonly known as the Stimulus Bill, was signed into law by President Barack Obama on 17 February 2009. It was intended to provide a stimulus to the US economy in the wake of the economic downturn. Within the US$787bn of this ARRA, a US$4.5bn stimulus fund was specifically reserved for smart grid projects, with a further US$90bn potentially available for

31

ANALYST REPORT

any projects which involve energy and may contribute to the realisation of a smart grid. In addition, the USA has different regulations and policies in place in individual states. However, there is no one universal regulation on how the connectivity of smart metering needs to be implemented, and it is up to the utility industries to decide.

It is worth noting that the gas and water distribution markets, as they are much more fragmented than electricity market, are not equally influenced by regulation, but mainly based on regional operations and municipal activities.

Utility industries’ stakes The regulation sets the objective and timeframe for the smart metering development in most countries, whereas the approaches of implementation is very much up to the incumbent utility industries.

In the case of France, regulation has been introduced for electricity and gas meters, but the technology and provider specified is very much decided by the dominant players. This stems from the fact that in France electricity distribution is 95% dominated by Electricité Réseau Distribution France (ERDF, now ENEDIS), and gas 95% by Gaz Réseau Distribution France (GRDF). It is thus their respective technologies that have essentially been selected: ENEDIS has deployed its own proprietary technology – Linky, while GRDF has adopted a smart metering technology provided by Ondeo Systems. Both solutions use a concentrator which firstly collects data directly from the smart meters. The data is then sent from there to its information centre via the cellular network.

In contrast to the domination of electricity and gas markets, the French water market is characterised by the fragmentation of distributors – there are 14,000 water distributors in France and three main suppliers, Veolia, Suez and Saur, have started their own deployments with different technologies.

When it comes to the German utility market, where it is fragmented, it is very much market driven as opposed to

32

regulation driven. For instance, in the electricity industry, the big four of RWE, EnBW, E.ON and Vattenfall have notably higher shares than the rest. Out of the many (at least 50) smart meter pilot projects in place, one of the largest-scale ones is by RWE in Mulheim an der Ruhr, with 100,000 smart meters for electricity. As demonstrated in the figure below, RWE is trialling different technologies suited to the environment of smart meters – for example, concentrated within high-storey flats, or out in the suburbs. The smart meters first connect to the multi-utility controller (MUC) using technologies such as wireless Meter-Bus and RS232. The MUC then transmits the data to the RWE Information Centre via either GPRS, PLC or DSL depending on the suitability of each technology. Started at the end of 2013, the RWE ‘Project Smart Meter Rollout’ will install a total of 4.5 million smart meters by 2017.

In the USA, since each state has its own regulations and policies for energy markets, it is up to the utilities to go ahead with the rollout of smart meters. Around 46 million US households, which equals 40% of the total, now have smart electricity meters installed. This is in fact ahead of the initial schedule foreseen by the government, with the expectations of reaching 40 million by 2015. Gas and water have received neither as much attention nor funding as compared to electricity smart meters. It is thus up to the utilities to invest and deploy the rollout of smart meters.

In the UK, regulations have specified smart metering technologies to be deployed; there is therefore no decision for the utilities to make. However, as both gas and electricity are distributed by energy providers, led by British Gas, the rollout of smart meters of the two utilities are synchronised – both electricity and gas meters are connected to the same communication hub within households. The rollout of smart metering will involve the introduction of a range of new equipment into customers' premises: • Gas and electricity meters with smart functionality • An IHD (In-Home Display) for domestic customers • A wide area network (WAN) module to connect to the central communications provider

IoT Now - September / October 2016

• A HAN to link different meters within customer premises, the WAN module and the IHD and potentially other consumer devices, such as microgeneration and load-control devices.

industry into the modern technology age, and thus the building of a smart metering infrastructure will be more about modernisation and evolution combining current communication and IT technologies.

This equipment represents the smart metering system within each customer's premises. The industries, working with the government, expected the mass rollout to start in early 2014 and to be completed in 2019, and up to 4.7 million meters could be installed prior to the mass rollout stage.

Figure 1: Global energy consumption, 2006 to 2030 (Quadrillion Btu)

678

700 637

586 600

508

562

472

Market analysis

500 400

Regulation driven The regulatory mechanism remains the most powerful driver of smart meter implementation. This was true even for the early nationwide smart meter adopters such as Italy and Sweden; it was merely a case of their regulation being in place before most other nations. In Italy, whilst Enel did indeed implement 27 million smart meters of its own accord in 2006 – without regulatory pressure, it was also in 2006 that regulation was introduced in the country to target 95% smart meter coverage by 2011.

The ever-increasing energy demand and the digital age According to the US Energy Information Administration, worldwide marketed energy consumption is projected to grow by 44% between 2006 and 2030 as economic recovery spurs future demand growth. With such increases in demand, action must be taken in order to make the supply side able to meet this demand, and smart meters – and the ensuing smart grid – are seen as a key solution to this.

The technology to cope with such rise in demand on the whole already exists. In fact, most countries are suffering from an aging infrastructure anyway. The average hardware age in the USA is 40 years so perhaps it is not surprising that blackouts occur; the infrastructure needs upgrading anyway. It is a matter of bringing the energy

IoT Now - September / October 2016

300 200 100 0 2006

2010

2015

2020

2025

2030

Source: Energy Information Administration

For a cleaner, greener environment Many nations are committed to tackling climate change: for example, there is the European 20-20-20 target for the year 2020 (20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions, an enlarged share (to 20%) of renewable energy in energy use, and a 20% improvement in the EU's energy efficiency); the smart meter would be a huge step towards achieving this. It is hoped that smart meters will make consumers more aware of their consumption and lead to more efficient energy use, and smart meters will form the basis for integrating renewable energy into the energy system.

Savings on their energy bills for consumers From a consumer perspective, the main selling point of smart meters is that they should be able to make savings

33

ANALYST REPORT

on their energy bill. According to the European Council, the UK-based AlertMe pilot project, which allows customers to turn off appliances by web interface or mobile, showed that energy savings can be up to 40%.

their bills. This problem was highlighted by the exit of Google and Microsoft in mid-2011, each citing disappointing user traction as their reasons for pulling the plug on energy management services.

Standards and interoperability needed for a mass deployment

Hemmed in by the business model issue

In a nutshell, the whole system will hardly be smart if there is no interoperability between the devices and technologies to provide a simple plug-and-play experience from end-to-end. Without standards, it is very difficult for any party involved to make large-scale investments in the development of smart meters. It could turn out that after making heavy investments in certain technologies, a different set of technologies goes mainstream; thus without a set of standards to act as a guide, there is a big risk that the market will not move forward on a large scale.

Conversely, once such standards are set then it will be much easier for all players, since they can invest and deploy the chosen technologies with confidence. In this respect this is related to regulation, which specifies the standards and technologies to be used, reinforcing the importance of regulation as a driver.

Future-proofing to support a long-term objective The smart meter is actually only the beginning of a longer term objective for the smart grid. It is a long-term vision and thus care needs to be taken to be able to support future developments on the grid, otherwise the players will continually have to rebuild. Should such future-proofing not be taken into account, the players involved will need to redevelop their systems from scratch which is both time and money consuming and hardly efficient.

Questions around consumer acceptance There are concerns over the security and reliability of smart meters with lawsuits already underway especially in the USA. Moreover, doubts remain over whether consumers really feel the need for smart meters, especially if they have to pay for the services in the end through

34

In effect, with the current model, utilities are being asked to sell less electricity and therefore reduce their revenue.

This calls for a new business model, based not on how much electricity is generated and sold but rather on how much has been saved.

Looking to the future, it is possible that utilities will start to introduce more dynamic pricing whereby the cost of energy reflects the demand â&#x20AC;&#x201C; more expensive during peak demands, with prices varying per hour, for example. In this way, utilities will be able to better predict their usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; consumption demands and thus produce accordingly, and charge a higher rate for those who consume during peak periods. It should be noted, however, that introducing such prices is likely to take time in many countries, as it is not simply a case of the utilities deciding by themselves; often regulators and even governments can be involved in such decision making.

Market sizing In modelling the forecast for worldwide smart meter deployment, the following assumptions have been made: Country regulations/targets will be met. This report has seen that various countries have put in place targets for the deployment of nationwide rollout of smart meters. Our forecasts assume that these targets will, on the whole, be met without major troubles and interferences. However, we take into account the fact that numerous deployments have been delayed.

Electricity meters to lead the way, gas to follow and gradual involvement of water meters. We have seen that in the main, it is electricity meters that are being made smart as the priority, with gas also receiving attention depending on the country. Thus electricity meters will be

IoT Now - September / October 2016

the main source of smart meter deployment, whilst water will only start to become heavily involved once electricity and gas have been widely trialled and accepted.

Taking the above assumptions into account, IDATE forecasts that there will be a total of just over 1.6 billion smart meters (electricity, gas and water) deployed worldwide, up from roughly 550 million in 2014; a CAGR of 19.6%.

Figure 2: Worldwide smart meter deployment forecast (electricity, gas and water), 2014-2020 (Million) 1800 1600 1400 1200

national levels, organised as centralised networks and controlling all aspects of the energy sector from production and transport to distribution, the domain is now evolving toward a more decentralised and liberalised vision.

The way energy is generated is also itself evolving, switching increasingly to renewable energy sources.

Current estimates indicate that 14% of European energy comes from renewables but this figure should increase to 50-80% by 2050. The switch to renewable sources is expected to bring decentralised and energy production and increase the complexity of production forecast. The development of electric vehicles is also impacting the grid, opening increased demand, unpredictable charging behaviours but also new possibilities in terms of electricity storage.

To summarise, the driving forces behind the development of the Smart Grid trend are: â&#x20AC;˘ The liberalisation of the energy market â&#x20AC;˘ The increasing switch to renewables with unpredictable production behaviour â&#x20AC;˘ The increasing unpredictable demand of consumers

1000 800 600 400 200 0 2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

Source : IDATE

Prospects: some future paths Opportunity beyond simple smart meter connectivity Looking further ahead, smart meters are in fact the first steps of building a national electrical smart grid, on top of which various services and applications can be built. The smart grid, in one simple sentence, is a two-way communications and controls system for a nation's electricity grid.

Historically controlled by state-owned operators at

IoT Now - September / October 2016

To answer those needs, the smart grid concept proposes to integrate intelligent behaviours at all levels of the energy grid and to allow bidirectional communication between all layers of the network. The concept of the smart grid is to double the energy network and to manage both demand and production of energy by using the communication layer.

The challenge of managing the grid increases too. The unpredictable production and consumption can create emerging behaviours that can turn into systemic failures.

Decision making has to take place with incomplete information which in turn requires greater reactivity and adaptability to ensure resilience of the system.

EU policies and funding in smart grids Regional and national regulation and policies are supportive of smart grids, particularly arising from the need to tackle increasing energy demands and to curb

35

ANALYST REPORT

CO2 emission. To advise on issues of smart grid deployment and development, the European Commission set up the Smart Grids Task Force in 2009. Phased projects cover five expert groups with each focusing on a specific area, including regulatory recommendations for privacy and data protection, regulation for smart grid deployment, smart grid infrastructure deployment and implementation of smart grid policies.

On top of the reglulatory support, funding plays a crucial role in smart grid development. €300m coming from the EU budget was invested in around 300 Smart Grid projects across member states during the early stage in 2011. In January 2016, under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), an EU funding programme for infrastructure projects of common interest (PCIs), Member States agreed on a Commission proposal to invest €217m in key trans-European energy infrastructure projects, mainly in Central and South Eastern Europe.

The development of electricity and gas infrastructure will benefit from CEF financial assistance. It will contribute to the completion of a European energy market and the integration of renewables into the electricity grid. This also includes environmental and engineering design studies for the Germany-Denmark interconnection which will help supply Nordic electricity to Central Europe.

However, the government support and private investement in smart grid is quite limited. 90% of the projects have received some form of public funding and more than 50 % of the total smart grid budget originates from four countries: France, the UK, Germany and Spain. In Eastern Europe the highest percentage of funding still comes from the European Commission (EC).

Infrastructure deployment With current investment in the domain getting larger and larger over the years, the projects are moving from early research and development phases to demonstration and

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deployment problematics. However, national rollout of smart grid, in the majority of countries, has only just begun. More likely, smart grid rollout on a national scale is more in the timeframe of 2020 and beyond.

Nevertheless, as the development of Smart Grid is supported by several initiatives in Europe, according to a study by the EC Joint Research Center, 459 projects with a budget of more than €3.15bn were addressing the smart grid trend in Europe in 2014.

The projects cover a great variety of use cases from network management, to customer behaviour energy optimisation, the integration of electric vehicles, and distributed energy resources in the grid, and smart metering initiatives.

Although France, UK and Germany lead in number of projects, smaller countries such as Denmark and Slovenia seem to invest strongly in smart grid technologies.

More specifically, numerous on-going pilot projects are studying new Distribution System Operation (DSO) planning and operational tools, to monitor and dispatch distributed energy resources to ensure optimal grid management. Nice Grid, Grid4EU, Venteea and E-Energy E-intelligence are several examples of European pilots for smart grids.

Nice Grid, among those pilot projects, is the first smart solar-energy demonstrator project to be conducted in the southern French town – Carros, supported by the local municipality and a broad range of stakeholders, including ENEDIS, EDF, GE and RTE (Réseau de transport d’électricité). Using Linky smart meters installed in the homes of volunteer participants, Nice Grid is testing the Smart Grid concept by integrating a high proportion of solar panels and individual energy storage batteries to the existing electrical infrastructure. An energy management system is being developed in expection to optimise the

IoT Now - September / October 2016

ANALYST REPORT

balance between energy consumption and generation at a secondary distribution network level.

Another earlier example in the UK, UK Power Networks has established a bilateral contract with the aggregator Enernoc for the demand response service in London since 2010. As part of the UK Power Networks' Low Carbon London project, Enernoc applied its DemandSMART application and services in selected grid areas, in order to

limit power congestions and avoid reinforcements.

Benefits included flexibility of distributed resources during peak hours occurring from Monday to Friday, increasing energy efficiency and improving energy supply transparency. UK Power Network’s business plan forecasts savings of about £40 million (€52m) from this scheme from 2015 until 2023, on the basis of successful trials carried out so far.

About IDATE Digiworld Since 1977, IDATE DigiWorld’s teams of specialists have earned a global reputation for independent, high quality analysis of digital industry markets, through three closely linked areas of activity: • DigiWorld Institute: a European think-tank for members, policy-makers and players of the digital transformation • DigiWorld Research: a global observatory of digital markets and innovation • IDATE Consulting: bespoke market research and consulting solutions Subscribe to our newsletter and keep up to date with our events and latest news here: http://www.idate.org/en/Newsletter/ More information about IDATE DigiWorld on: www.idate.org and at our blog here: http://blog.idate.fr

IoT Now - September / October 2016

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COMPANY PROFILE

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in London, Telit is a global leader that offers the industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s broadest portfolio of products, platforms and services to enable IoT deployments for a wide range of industries.

Specific to smart metering, its portfolio of modules addresses cellular communication technologies with all flavours from 2G, 3G to CDMA450 to LTE Cat-1 evolving to Cat-M and NB1 tomorrow, short range modules (WMBus, Zigbee, BT, mesh) as well as LPWA modules like Sigfox and LORA. With the emerging interest in and activities around smart cities, Telit also has IoT connectivity plans and a platform that serves as the underpinning to applications and solutions that support more than metering. Critical to support and maintain infrastructure, the platform can be used to support multiple applications, and acts as the OSS (operating support system) for related solutions such as smart metering, smart lighting and smart parking. What makes Telit unique is that it has module level integration that ties into a communication agnostic platform used as the IoT on-ramp for devices either aggregating sensor data, or connecting directly to programmable logic controllers actually controlling key elements in electricity, water and gas infrastructure.

Utilising the IoT connectivity plans and platform, Telit positions itself as a leader in cellular smart metering deployment. Plenty of deployments of cellular-based projects around the world demonstrate its success, including the first and second phases of the SMIP programme in the UK, the first and second phases of Dutch deployment, the Italian Gas project and the Linky project in France. More recently, a Telit partner, M2M Engineering is currently negotiating for over 300,000 utility end-points in the United States, powered by Telit hardware, Telit connectivity, and the Telit IoT Platform.

What can be observed from the global footprint of Telit is that the momentum is there now, although it is always taking more time to deploy than expected.

Electricity is leading with nationwide roll-outs, followed by the gas sector. Water has always been regional and fragmented in terms of technology, but it represents a huge market for LPWA technologies. Nevertheless, much of what has been deployed for water, gas and electricity metering deployments are often silo

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solutions that have bandwidth limitations and are not well suited to address multiple business use cases.

Often these lack the ability, particularly, to scale and support related solutions that are popping up in smart city initiatives.

In spite of that, utility industries are still paying huge attention to smart metering, in order to meet the severe challenges of decentralisation, decarburisation, renewable energies momentum and COP21 measures.

Regarding the deployments, according to Telit, the utility providers either build a communication network to make their own meters smarter when implementing PLC or private RF technologies, or rely on partners like CSPs (communication service providers) to manage that part of the smart meter mainly based on cellular networks.

With the deployment proceeding, CBA (Cost Benefit Analysis) is being conducted in each of the EU member states to check the return on investment (ROI) of smart metering, implying that very few were not positive. If added to smart cities solutions that could be managed from an IoT platform that supports more than metering, the ROI becomes extremely accelerated.

The positive results can be largely due to the new business opportunities coming with smart metering.

These include: operational cost reduction by avoiding sending people for index reading, accurate and realtime consumption information for accurate invoicing, switching on or off subscribers when a new tenant enters a flat or house or for prepaid metering, reducing energy theft.

As smart metering is at the edge of the electricity consumption, it is therefore the first step; however, to get the full benefit, smart grids must complement meters to have a complete smart energy network and to be able to micro manage locally the energy and balance the load as well as proactively anticipate issues on the network such as outage management. To drive smart metering to the next stage, it is more than necessary to explain better to the consumers the gains they can have in better managing their energy consumption. Meanwhile, many other challenges are yet to be overcome, including funding, complexity of large roll-outs, as well as standardisation for future proofing solutions.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

COMPANY PROFILE

Having been consistently doing connected businesses for more than 40 years, MultiTech designs, develops and manufactures communications equipment for the industrial internet of things (IIoT) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; connecting physical assets to business processes to deliver enhanced value.

Its IoT communications solutions encompass a range of embedded devices as well as gateways, routers and modems that address connectivity across a variety of technologies including analogue, ethernet, cellular, PAN and LPWA. MultiTech also provides an extensive portfolio of M2M communications services covering engineering, design, development, manufacturing and support. Meanwhile, MultiTech has a processed certifications service to smooth the path to enabling communications for IoT and M2M applications, reducing the time, cost and risk associated with regulatory and industry certifications, and carrier approvals.

With more than 22 million products actually performing essential duties for businesses around the globe, MultiTech has earned a reputation for quality and reliability. The customisation and flexibility coming with fast and agile development also differentiates MultiTech from its competitors. MultiTech is providing what it claims is the first commercially deployable LoRA-based suite of communications devices.

Getting down to the smart metering business, the key component of its smart city strategy, MultiTech is committed to connecting the utilities and distributors to their assets to facilitate: tank and pipeline monitoring, automated meter reading, dynamic demand response, environmental monitoring and emergency alerts.

According to MultiTech, with Europe really leading the way, smart metering has been in active deployment for the past five years or so, but is still not ubiquitous.

Limiting factors to deployment have included lifecycle needs â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the minimum is ten years and the ideal is 20 years, communications technologies, such as cellular, Zigbee, Wi-Fi and others, consumer privacy concerns and, ultimately, the inability to rapidly recover and monetise the investment required to overhaul existing utility infrastructure.

To begin with, since the early stages of smart metering, the utility industries have not come to complete agreement on the question of which technologies are

IoT Now - September / October 2016

most likely to last throughout the life of the equipment.

Whichever they chose or choose, replacing existing infrastructure has been and will continue to be expensive. Today we are seeing the reason for their slow and deliberate decision process. Utilities are now wondering how often the consumer-driven march of network progress is going to cause them to incur these costs again and again.

Further, utilities that have rolled out smart meters are indeed gaining efficiencies and saving money, as they were able to impact consumer behaviour with pricing incentives designed to encourage off-peak consumption. However, with this model, the utilities are being trapped with how to go beyond cost savings to actually monetise a great deal of data. They missed a few steps executing on their hopes of becoming the home gateway, owing to privacy concerns. In addition, to fulfill the promise of data in terms of demand response and distribution automation through smart grids, they need to invest more. This is a tough argument given most are operated by cash-strapped cooperatives and municipalities â&#x20AC;&#x201C; who have yet to prove the payoff from that last huge meter-driven investment.

Looking forward to the evolution to smart grids, smart meters need to be integrated in a broader network.

With energy infrastructure around the world, aging rapidly after its first hundred years, there are many more critical end points to connect and much to be gained from true M2M automation that can enable dynamic demand response. Utilities already headed down this path to find much faster ROI, reduction of service interruptions and the ability to better prioritise equipment maintenance.

The future path will still face challenges linked with funding, as well as the merging of metering data with wider grid and operational data. Nevertheless, the emergence of low power wide area (LPWA) technologies hold many promises to address some of the hindrances of development, including battery life, low data rates and cost. Certain technologies like LoRa even enable the utility to create their own network or leverage public networks. As these technologies get mature deployed, they will significantly change the ROI equation and likely drive a new wave of adoption across the entire grid. www.multitech.co.uk

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INTERVIEW

Platform-based approach is the best way to futureproof IoT applications The rise of IoT is creating a plethora of exciting business opportunities as well as challenges for enterprises seeking to realize the business potential of connecting their assets. In order to support enterprises in reaping the full benefits of IoT in their business operations myriad IoT platforms have launched into the market over recent years, which in various ways, facilitate the development of applications and solutions

IoTNow speaks to Bernd Gross, the chief executive of Cumulocity, about the IoT platforms market and strategic considerations for enterprises.

IoT Now: IoT has massive market potential and growth is accelerating. What have been the major challenges that need to be addressed and what are the major growth areas that you are seeing?

Bernd Gross: The major challenge to extract the full value from IoT adoption is to reduce the

perceived complexity of setting up solutions and mining value from the data. This requires the integration of the IoT solution into the wider business environment, including operations, processes and organisation. Everyone instinctively agrees about the vast potential of the technology, but when it comes to actually defining the business case and technical solution, things get more complicated.

Once that hurdle is passed, it can take a lot of work to get what is usually a wide assortment of devices and systems synced up on a single application platform. At Cumulocity we have addressed exactly these aspects in order to make adopting IoT as easy and as straightforward as possible. By using the best available tools, enterprises can save themselves considerable cost and effort which allows them to launch new applications far more quickly.

After six years of working in this industry, we now see that many applications are beginning to reach maturity. Some of the best examples are remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, condition monitoring and process automation.

Remote monitoring of high value assets both in

â&#x2013;ź

Cumulocity is a pioneer in IoT platform development having recognised the future need to manage the multiplicity of networks created through M2M/IoT to the same high standards as in telecoms networks. Originally started as an innovation programme within Nokia Siemens Networks in Mountain View, California in 2010 and founded as an independent company in 2012, Cumulocity remains a leading global IoT application enablement platform provider, supporting more than 100 customers, in excess of 2,500 developers and over 1,000 tenants across five continents.

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IoT Now - September / October 2016

IoT Now: More and more companies seem to be adopting IoT platforms. What are the business reasons behind this? Where do IoT platforms add the most value?

BG: Using a comprehensive IoT application enablement platform allows organisations to avoid many aspects of solution development, allowing them to progress their IoT projects and initiatives at a faster pace. Cumulocity’s platform solution enables three phased IoT adoption:

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Additional – which adds IoT data to the existing business processes; Operational – which changes and optimises operational processes; and Innovational – which transforms the business with new services and business models.

With pre-defined system components for every part of the applications stack, the IoT platform offers a fast track to prototyping and allows businesses to use the same environment for pilots and commercial deployments. This allows enterprises to easily trial IoT solutions and hedge the risks associated with technology decisions.

Use of the right application enablement solution mitigates the main business risks of the traditional point solution approach as well as reducing the costs of maintaining the solutions.

Traditional point solutions pose a number of problems in the medium term, such as accommodating changing business models, high operational costs, limited scalability and stability, lack of sufficient security concepts and so forth.

A platform approach supports constant innovation by abstracting the machine data, protocols and access network from the application innovations. As a result, we are seeing

Bernd Gross: Using the best available tools, enterprises can save themselves considerable cost and effort

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the enterprise as well as consumer market, whether it is cars, trucks or machines, makes perfect sense from an economic standpoint. For example, Duerkopp Adler, a manufacturer of industrial sewing machines, has improved its international service level in a cost effective way by the remote monitoring and control of their equipment. Advanced data analytics creates vast new opportunities in predictive maintenance and condition monitoring that help service organisations live up to the highest customer requirements and expectations. High resolution real-time data streams enable new levels of process automation in everything from supply chains to manufacturing.

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INTERVIEW

There are many different types of IoT platforms available in the market today and it can be difficult to know what sets them apart from each other

IoT Now: So what would you consider to be the most important things an enterprise should consider in selecting an IoT platform?

BG: There are many different types of IoT platforms available in the market today and it can be difficult to know what sets them apart from each other. From a business continuity perspective, an IoT platform should provide the best-in-class capability in terms of security, open interfaces, carrier grade reliability, service levels, scalability and allow a seamless integration into the back-office environment which is essential to the enterpriseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business operations. From our perspective, there are two main forms of IoT platforms. The first is universal platforms that offer all the functionality required by developers through an open, well-documented API. The second is application-specific platforms, which were originally developed for a specific use-case and later extended with some APIs. We believe that the first category of platforms is clearly the best and most future-proof choice for enterprise customers. The Cumulocity platform has been under constant development by a large team for multiple years. Today we offer the most extensive code-base in the industry in a highly secure platform environment that is carrier grade. Our real-time streaming analytics and SaaS integration builder enables rapid development of end-to-end process automation applications, connecting devices to core IT-systems.

IoT Now: A growing amount of attention is being focused on Industrial IoT. What is specific about this vertical?

BG: The industrial sector is in a stage of rapid transformation due to globalisation and ongoing automation. Most of the enterprises in this sector are dealing with globally dispersed assets, whether these are production machinery or in the transport of high value goods. High value

industrial assets are increasingly being deployed on a global scale.

The products are getting more sophisticated and complex in their design and, at the same time, customer requirements for reliability and service are becoming ever more demanding. IoT provides enterprises in the industrial sector with the capabilities for process automation and improvements in customer service, anywhere in the world. Smart solutions generate a direct business value and a rapid return on investment.

Yet, getting the solutions in place can be quite complicated.

The multi-tiered industrial environment has many specialist providers competing in a highly intense global arena and the embedded IT systems for control and automation use a wide range of protocols and standards to meet very specific requirements in different vertical markets. This is why an open and comprehensive IoT platform can add so much value. Instead of creating a brand new application from scratch for each new device type and protocol, businesses can re-use existing modules and benefit from constant improvement as members of a large platform community. On top of that, the best IoT platforms provide a wide selection of network connectivity options to accommodate secure communication using a wide range of fixed and wireless technologies.

IoT Now: IoT deployment models are evolving and becoming multi-faceted. What changes are you seeing going forward and what is their value?

BG: The accelerating adoption of IoT solutions into business processes is also increasing the pressure on IoT application enablement platforms to expand their scope and functionality. IoT is at the forefront of IT technology development where new advances in big data analytics and communication often find their first applications.

One of the latest trends is edge analytics, a tiered approach in data processing, where analysis and actions are done at the right point in the process chain to ensure the maximum impact at the lowest resource usage. Certain business decisions can be taken locally based on the IoT data being available, but in order to optimise the full end-to-

â&#x2013;ź

more and more companies moving their existing point solutions to an application enablement platform. Trackerando, a provider of a wide range of tracking solutions, recently migrated from its legacy point solution to Cumulocityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s application enablement platform to deliver a fully featured secure consumer tracking service.

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IoT Now - September / October 2016

The multi-tiered industrial environment has many specialist providers competing in a highly intense global arena and the embedded IT systems for control and automation use a wide range of protocols and standards to meet very specific requirements in different vertical markets

end process other business decisions can only be taken on a platform level which combines data from all the different components of the process.

This can be extended to multi-tiered IoT platforms in which multiple devices, systems and solution providers interact as part of a complex environment.

Another dimension to address in a globally dispersed solution is dealing with legislation on data privacy, storage and concerns on data security. Having the capability to operate the IoT application enablement in a geo-distributed data

IoT Now - September / October 2016

centre environment is of the essence. All these new capabilities, as well as potential future requirements, should be considered when planning for the replacement of legacy purposebuilt and proprietary applications. A platformbased approach is the best way to future-proof IoT applications designed today and make sure that they grow along with the organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s requirements and the transformation of markets.

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016 • VOLUME 6 • ISSUE 4

LPWA & LoRa SUPPLEMENT

MultiTech Systems Long range low power networks mean enterprises can do it for themselves

LATEST LPWA & LoRa NEWS

www.iot-now.com PLUS: A 10-PAGE SUPPLEMENT • LPWA: A MARKET IN THE MAKING • POWERFUL LOW POWER OPTIONS FOR ENTERPRISE IoT • ENSURE INTEROPERABILITY

INTERVIEW

Low power long-range radio networks mean enterprises are doing it for themselves Enterprises are increasingly looking at low power radio networks to run their IoT applications and services. Here Daniel Quant, the vice president of product management and strategic market at MultiTech, tells George Malim that low power long range (LPLR) enterprise networks offers enterprises both large and small a compelling opportunity to switch from a monthly model of spiralling incremental fees to a capex up front model which puts them in control of their networks

Daniel Quant: The question is really one of how different an enterprise network is to an operator’s network. The business model is fundamentally different. With an operator’s network approach I accept that there will be a delta in my monthly cost that I have to pay. For example, there’s a fee to onboard any additional device because I use but don’t own the network.

This works well, particularly for enterprises that have assets dispersed across the world, because it costs a lot to cover the whole world. However, if my assets are more clustered this doesn’t work well, especially for industrial applications. If I buy a mobile phone, there’s a benefit but only for two years whereas with industry assets, that are being specified to run for seven to ten years, the opex cost per calendar month far outweighs any equipment capex cost.

For example, if you have production facilities or supermarkets, an enterprise network has many

benefits. You can go and buy the equipment and assets you need and install them in your facilities where your clustered devices are. Although you pay a bit more up front, it’s yours and low power radio effectively means you get to a wide area network (WAN) model without opex.

At MultiTech, we’ve learnt there are business cases where the operator model doesn’t really match the need of the customer organisation.

Enterprises don’t want to be penalised for every asset they connect. They’re happy to pay small opex for secure infrastructure, load balancing and some other features but the opex is quite low and the capex is quite high up front, but it’s a one-off.

IoT Now: When is an LPLR enterprise network the right solution for companies considering using the IoT? DQ: When they start to have some clustered assets – and they don’t need to have very many.

The cost of a gateway is somewhere between US$200-US$300. Over five years, that could ▼

IoT Now: What is a Low Power Long Range (LPLR) enterprise network?

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IoT Now - September / October 2016

The bottom line is the technology. Digital spread spectrum and ultimately narrowband technologies have existed for some time, but the way LoRa, Ingenu and Sigfox have been put together has enabled really good noise immunity

work out very attractively if you had, say, 600 assets to connect, for example: something around US$6 per month per endpoint.

also don’t necessarily always have access to places in the middle, so the technologies didn’t lend themselves to enterprise wide area deployments.

You don’t need many assets to make this start coming alive. Even if one of these assets is mobile on a truck, you could still derive value because many LoRa apps don’t need to be real-time. This would mean the truck could communicate its data when it arrives at another of your locations.

If you’re trucking frozen shrimp, you only need to know at the end that the cold chain was uninterrupted.

LPLR technology isn’t brand new, but by having noise reduced, the link budget creates momentum for public services, and enterprises haven’t missed the potential.

DQ: The bottom line is the technology. Digital spread spectrum and ultimately narrowband technologies have existed for some time, but the way LoRa, Ingenu and Sigfox have been put together has enabled really good noise immunity.

The 2.4Ghz band is very noisy, as are the networks of utilities in the 900Mhz range. Noise can be high, and these technologies still work and it was that that enabled us to get the long-range capability. Previous technologies like Zigbee and others didn’t have the noise immunity, so you were forced to have meshing to achieve noise immunity, which didn’t work well for battery consumption.

In addition, the cost of all the gateways and repeaters dented the business model a bit. You

IoT Now - September / October 2016

DQ: Very nicely, and from our perspective, much better than other options. We are a company that has provided analogue modems for 40 years and there have been no real developments to speak of in that business, although it remains a nice business for us. The other area of our business is cellular, which is showing great growth – we’ve already outperformed 2015 and we have more than a quarter to go in 2016.

Given that, we didn’t want to affect our cellular growth with unlicensed offerings. What we’ve tried to do with our unlicensed band strategy is open up use cases that cellular or other approaches alone can’t address.

We don’t subscribe to The Highlander model – that there can be only one successful option and the industry has figured out that more than one technology could be used to suit different use cases.

Unlicensed has grown our business without cannibalising our cellular business and, although

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IoT Now: What is new that makes LPLR enterprise networks important today?

IoT Now: How does LoRaWAN fit into an LPLR enterprise network solution?

47

INTERVIEW

cellular is growing fast, we’ve grown 5% of our business with LoRa. We have hundreds of design wins now so next year we’re gearing up for, perhaps, more than 10% of our business being LoRa without cannibalising cellular. A lot of our wins are where the cellular signal is poor or where 4G isn’t available.

For example, a sensor in a corn field or under a fruit tree simply can’t make a cellular connection but you can use LoRa and pick up cellular backhaul. We see similarly strong opportunities and design wins in building automation.

What we’re seeing with unlicensed band strategies is the ability to connect assets that technology or communications couldn’t make work before, but they can now. In the cellular business, higher value data streams suit that technology, but not all streams are high value or addressed by cellular coverage.

Daniel Quant: Although you pay a bit more up front, it’s yours and you get to a WAN model without opex

IoT Now: Which applications have been early LPLR enterprise network adopters?

DQ: Smart agriculture, building management and facilities management automation are where we’ve clustered a lot of design wins and enterprise OEM providers.

IoT Now: Why did MultiTech invest in this new offering?

DQ: We got into this simply because we needed to and we knew there were markets that were untapped and not going to be addressed by cellular technologies for technical and commercial reasons. We knew that Zigbee and others wouldn’t work because of the requirement for meshing. We looked at SigFox and Ingenu but they wouldn’t work for us because of the service model – even on ten devices over five years, it just doesn’t work.

We wanted to put our resources into a technology that wasn’t operator driven, which narrowed the choice to weightless or LoRa. LoRa is a better choice because its ecosystem is better developed and it suited the business model and the target customers. The Link budget is good, the battery performance is good and availability is easy.

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IoT Now: What are the business models that you see as best served by LPLR Enterprise networks?

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IoT Now - September / October 2016

DQ: We have a number of design wins in large and small enterprises that don’t want to be nickel and dimed on every endpoint. If I came to your house and used your Wi-Fi, would you expect to have to pay your provider? You wouldn’t so I think that enterprises should have the same option.

You built a Wi-Fi network so you have a better product as a company and visitors can access it to tell you things when they visit. In IIoT, it’s exactly the same. For example, if I want to connect a few more pumps in a production environment and I’ve paid for the network, why should I be paying for adding them? If I put 2,000 pumps in, yes I understand that I should buy another gateway and balance the load a bit more but for a small increase I don’t think it’s fair to be charged.

Our strategy is to provide customers with capex strong investment in all the equipment, the modules and the gateways and our Device HQ platform for monitoring the assets. We were first to announce an IIoT app store that enables us to push customer applications into our equipment.

For example, in a situation where rat traps are monitored in a food and beverage facility, it can be easy to put intelligence at the edge to monitor when a trap is triggered if you own the network and have access to specific apps to run the equipment. However, in a network where I don’t know what the equipment or app is, I can’t put intelligence at the edge.

We’re trying to distribute resources better through the enterprise and trying to establish things more effectively. To imagine enterprise networks are deployed and never changed is a little ludicrous. What the enterprise is looking for is something that enables product lifecycle management for the equipment that it has bought and enables this at very low cost.

IoT Now: Do you see network operators getting involved in LPLR enterprise networks?

DQ: Yes, for sure. Every enterprise that deploys its own network weakens the business case of the cellular operator and that is not a fact that’s

IoT Now - September / October 2016

wasted on them. This is why operators have made very loud low power radio announcements about what they’re doing – the launches are loud because every enterprise that takes a DIY approach potentially hurts their business.

The difference for enterprises in low power, which wasn’t seen in cellular, is that you can bring your own gateway.

IoT Now: Enterprise networks like Wi-Fi are in the IT domain. Does an LPLR EN follow the same path or does the IoT edge aspect put it in the OT domain?

Our strategy is to provide customers with capex strong investment in all the equipment, the modules and the gateways and our Device HQ platform for monitoring the assets

DQ: There is definitely an IT and OT (operations technology) play going on. Part of driving success in enterprise markets is focused on IT because the network will site in the IT department and be managed by IT even though network services are more of an OT offering. OT is essentially using the service and IT is hosting the service. This is a fundamental shift because when you use an operator you bypass IT, so IT starts to become involved if you do this yourself and build your own network.

IoT Now: When is LPLR enterprise network operation a make decision and when is it a buy decision?

DQ: It’s super easy to make the calculation as I did at the start. There’s some maths in IT and management and little bit of opex in enterprise deployment, just as there is in Wi-Fi. You might see services such as managed onboarding at a small cost per user. There is an opex component, but I think you can see that you don’t need many assets to justify buying that infrastructure and running it over a five-year period.

Low power might be a bit more industrial than connecting people and printers, for example, but it is still in the enterprise domain. Smart enterprises have already made up their minds to deploy low power solutions. The case for smaller enterprises is perhaps a bit more marginal because cellular operators make it easy for them to have connections without having to build networks but I think the business case speaks for itself.

www.multitech.com

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LOW POWER COMMUNICATIONS

LPWA: a market in the making Whenever a new concept like IoT comes along, there is always speculation and conjecture over how the market for it will develop, particularly when there are competing technologies involved and LPWA is proving to be no exception. At present, how the market for IoT systems and devices evolves and what its eventual shape will be depends, as ever, on who‘s doing the talking. It is already possible however, even though IoT is still a relatively nascent concept, to discern the dynamics at work as the industry moves ahead, writes Peter Dykes

Essentially, players fall into two camps. On the one hand there are proprietary technologies such as SigFox and Ingenu, and on the other there are the standards-based technologies such as LoRa, backed by the LoRa Alliance, and LTE-based systems developed by the 3GPP group.

Experience teaches that ultimately, the standards-based technologies will win out because they are vendor and technology agnostic, and while LoRa is arguably behind LTEbased standards in terms of large-scale infrastructure availability, it is beginning to

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overtake the likes of SigFox and Ingenu in market positioning.

Indeed, the lack of in-situ infrastructure is holding back the deployment of LoRa at present.

Exponentially rising demand for LoRa hardware and gateways is swamping vendors with the knock-on effect of delaying network rollouts, according to Nigel Chadwick, the chief executive of Stream Technologies. He says, “This can be frustrating for platform vendors who, while they may be receiving orders for large-scale networks, are having difficulties getting the hardware from the vendors.” Chadwick adds however that the situation will be resolved in 2017 when production volumes come into line with demand.

Infrastructure availability is not such a big problem for the 3GPP systems as they are primarily aimed at cellular operators and consist of little more than enhancements to existing networks. That said, end point hardware in the form of LTE chipsets only began shipping at the

▼

From the communications perspective, IoT is all about connecting hundreds of millions of diverse, battery-driven devices which require secure bidirectional communication, mobility and localisation services over wireless networks. IDC forecasting is predicting 30 billion connected objects by 2020, with the sector worth US$2.75 trillion by that time and competition for a slice of the potentially lucrative LPWA market has, unsurprisingly, been hotting up for some time.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

beginning of September 2016, following Release 13 earlier in the year, but it does mean that commercial cellular-based IoT solutions will probably be first to market ahead of LoRa networks, given the reduced infrastructure rollout requirement.

fixed period and from that work out how much they can charge for access to each one. In addition, deployments in towns and small areas which have poor cellular connectivity but which require M2M and sensor connectivity could also enable enterprises to make a similar offering.

Once both technologies have begun to roll out, likely market shares going forward will become easier to predict. This is because the true cost of IoT modules will become clear and it will be far easier for end users to calculate the TCO for an LPWA network. Currently however, there is some dispute over the price of modules. Shane Rooney, the executive director of IoT at the GSMA, says, “A lot of attention has been focused on the module costs and some of the others such as LoRa and SigFox have been saying sensors will only cost one or two dollars each, but this is simply not true. Module costs are actually a lot higher than that and realistically, they are all going to be a similar price, so the actual cost ultimately depends on scale.”

Rooney admits that the argument is valid, but has reservations. He says, “Monetising third party access over what is essentially a private network definitely has potential for recouping the original investment, but we’ve yet to see it happen. It will all depend on the application and what else is being offered because it won’t be achieved on connectivity alone.“

Rooney believes that module costs for cellularbased systems will be far lower because operators will be able to access much greater economies of scale than will buyers of LoRabased networks.

Customers for LoRa-based systems do have an option to reduce network TCO by becoming operators themselves however. Most LoRa deployments are expected to be in large-scale industries, agriculture, utilities and to some extent smart buildings and smart cities. Among the larger private utilities companies who have the ability to roll out a network for their own use, LoRa network suppliers are reporting that these customers are realising they can sell access to their networks to third parties and thus recoup their initial investment. As a result, it becomes far easier for a large private organisation to roll out a nationwide network and reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of hardware and network management platforms. Then they can calculate for example, the cost of millions of sensors over a

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Once both technologies have begun to roll out, likely market shares going forward will become easier to predict

That IoT is a global phenomenon is beyond doubt, with demand coming from most parts of the world for both LoRa and LTE-based LPWA networks, however LoRa is likely to face stiff competition from 3GPP vendors who feel they have all the bases covered with three standards ranging from EC-GSM IoT, which is aimed at cellular operators running 2G in developing markets such as Africa, India and South America where infrastructure rollout costs are high, through to Cat-M1 for operators who are LTEready. The intermediate standard, NB-IoT is probably the most ubiquitous of the three and could prove to be a disruptive influence, as it has advantages over the other 3GPP standards and meets the challenge of LoRa head on. That said, in markets such as North America and Europe, where 2G networks have been or are in the process of being rolled up, LTE-based solutions are likely to dominate.

The weight of argument seems to be that the cellular-based standards will dominate in the medium to long term, with technologies such as LoRa confined largely to private installations such as industrial and agricultural complexes, however the market will remain fragmented for the foreseeable future and there should be room for all. It’s just that some LPWA technologies might not get as big a slice of the market than they are currently predicting.

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INTERVIEW

How can you ensure end-to-end interoperability between products and services?

In July Actility, a provider of low power wide area (LPWA) networking and the company behind the ThingPark LPWA IoT platform, launched the ThingPark Approved programme. Actility also welcomed the first partners to achieve ThingPark Approved status. Here, Jeremy Cowan of IoT Now asks Christophe Francois, the vice president of Ecosystem at Actility, how to ensure service interoperability

IoT Now: What is Actility’s goal with the ThingPark Approved programme?

Christophe Francois: Actility aims to help its partners simplify IoT deployment, accelerate IoT roll-out, and grow IoT revenue. The goal of the ThingPark Approved programme is to help our partners (device manufacturers, gateway manufacturers, design house, solutions providers, application developers) to fast-track their IoT solutions to market. ThingPark partners can connect and conduct interoperability testing of their products with our platform to achieve

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ThingPark Approved status, interact with other solution providers in the ThingPark ecosystem, and then market and sell their solutions in the ThingPark MarketPlace.

The ThingPark Approved programme also gives our Partners the opportunity to participate in comarketing activity, join the ThingPark Approved partner catalogue, and all will be able to display the ThingPark Approved logo on their products, collateral and web-sites.

Lastly, the ThingPark Approved Programme will give confidence to the operators of a ThingParkpowered IoT network that a product to be connected to their network is fully functional and will inter-operate with the network without causing any network issues.

IoT Now: When did work start with programme partners on their Approvals? How long do Approvals generally take to complete?

CF: The first partners’ products began testing around six months ago, in February 2016.

Approvals will usually be completed within two weeks (depending on how often the end device

▼

Covering the solution spectrum from sensors and modules to gateways and ultimately applications, ThingPark Approved products are evaluated across a range of interfaces and integration points to ensure interoperability within an end-toend solution. Highlighting the diversity of partners in the ThingPark Ecosystem, Actility announced ThingPark Approved status for Adeunis RF, AllThingsTalk, ATIM, Daliworks, Expemb, Finsecur, Flashnet, Foxconn, Globalsat, IMST, Kerlink, Microchip, MultiTech, MyDevices, Nemeus, NKE-Watteco, Omniimpex, Rising HF and Sensing Labs.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

INTERVIEW

application can be set to send an uplink message). Actility is currently working on automating this test procedure, so that in the medium term, it will be executed directly by the partner through a user dashboard in the ThingPark Partner web site.

IoT Now: What is the process that partners must go through for Approval?

CF: The partner must first join the Partner Programme on-line through our ThingPark Partner web site (trial periods are available for developers or device partners). When joining the programme, the partner agrees and signs the Partner Agreement online. Then the partner: • Pays at least the annual subscription fee (€500) and the test package fee (€500 per device/channel plan).

• Submits a description of its product on line • Provides sample device(s) to Actility for testing • Tracks and manages the evaluation process to achieve ThingPark Approved status through a Partner Dashboard After becoming ThingPark Approved, the partner can join the Marketplace to promote and market its products with the ThingPark Approved logo.

IoT Now: You describe this as a business enabler, not a certification programme. Can you expand on that?

CF: The ThingPark Approval programme is not a replacement for the LoRa Alliance LORaWAN Certification process, which is aimed at radio and network behaviour rather than end to end service interoperability. It is complementary to it, by ensuring that the ThingPark approved product can easily be connected to the ThingPark platform and provide the application data to where it is needed.

IoT Now: In the absence of global IoT standards we are seeing the rise of ecosystems. Will they remove the need for some standards?

CF: The global IoT market is growing very fast and the big challenge for the normal standards bodies is to be able to ratify, implement and productise IoT standards in a timely manner. In the meantime, market driven industrial alliance standards are available to bridge the gap until they can be incorporated by the formal standards bodies. Actility believes that open innovation around shared standards is the proven way of growing a market, and we can see examples of both formal standards-body driven success stories and industry alliances such as the internet or global mobile telephony, and the Bluetooth protocol.

IoT Now: The ThingPark ecosystem covers a wide spread of solutions. Can you give our readers an Idea of the range? What types of solution are included?

CF: Thanks to its partners’ diversity, the ThingPark Ecosystem covers a wide range of products from sensors and modules, through

IoT Now - September / October 2016

gateways and connectivity, to application platforms, data analytics and end user applications. As a result, the full breadth of IoT vertical markets are covered: Smart Cities, Factories and Industrial applications, Agriculture, Facility Management, Health care or dedicated networks for specific verticals, such as airport management.

Examples of applications include air quality measurement, cattle tracking and health monitoring, energy efficient street lighting solutions, smart parking, monitoring wind turbine performance and maintenance requirement, and even better mousetraps – which report when they have trapped a rodent, optimising the efficiency of the pest control operatives that empty them.

Christophe Francois: Open innovation around shared standards is the proven way of growing a market

IoT Now: Can you give examples of how the scheme has accelerated IoT deployments?

CF: The ThingPark Approved programme guarantees easy and quick connection of any Approved product to a LPWA Network to provide the desired service, without any risk for the manufacturer nor for the network operator.

This programme also accelerates the partner onboarding to ThingPark, builds market awareness for them through our partner catalogue and grows their business through ThingPark marketplace.

This scheme and its associated tools (web site with partner zone, interoperability procedure partially automatised, etc.) constitute a way for our partners to fast-track their IoT projects to Market. The ThingPark Approved programme optimises and industrialises a process that has already supported accelerated deployments such as the national LoRaWAN IoT networks rolled out

by KPN in the Netherlands or Proximus in Belgium, both of which are already supporting applications such as smart parking, airport asset tracking and facilities management – including better mousetraps.

IoT Now: What are the next steps for Actility and ThingPark?

CF: The ThingPark Approved programme is the latest stage in the development of Actility’s ThingPark IoT solutions platform. Alongside ThingPark Marketplace, the platform comprises the ThingPark Wireless LPWA network, providing long-range coverage for low-power consumption sensors, and ThingPark Mash-up, enabling developers to create applications using the installed base of ThingPark Approved sensors, exposing sensor capabilities and access to sensor data through open APIs. With large scale national IoT deployments continuing around the globe, the footprint of ThingPark powered networks is expanding rapidly. Actility will also now begin to target enterprise customers and solutions with our partners such as Cisco and Inmarsat.

The author of this article is Jeremy Cowan, the editorial director of IoT Now & VanillaPlus.

The global IoT market is growing very fast and the big challenge for the normal standards bodies is to be able to ratify, implement and productise IoT standards in a timely manner

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EXPERT OPINION

Low power connections open up powerful options for enterprise IoT As low power wide area (LPWA) radio technologies and LoRa WAN in particular start to take off organisations are benefiting from wider connectivity choices and reduced barriers to entry. These new connectivity options are vital to stimulate further utilisation of IoT, Stream Technologies’ Mohsen Shakoor and Niall Strachan tell George Malim

“We’re sat at a different level in the industry to most IoT technology vendors and that means we see different approaches from larger enterprises that are properly considering LPWA as part of their strategy and rolling it out to their customer base,” says Mohsen Shakoor, who leads strategic partnerships for Stream Technologies’ IoT-X platform. “That has been a significant development in the last six to eight months.”

Shakoor says the rise of new connectivity options such as LoRaWAN have made it easier for companies to consider deploying their own wireless networks because there are fewer intricacies involved in setting up networks based on these technologies. “With LoRaWAN, you can own every element inside a privately run network by developing the software and then building and deploying the gateway, or you can outsource various components or all of it,” he adds.

With traditional cellular data being provided on a national network run by an incumbent cellular operator, the trade off between cost and the quality is not necessarily making all users happy

Part of the appeal of technologies such as this is that these are not theoretical solutions that are untested. “LoRaWAN, for example, was ratified more than a year ago and, while it may have taken some time for vendors to initially develop their solutions to comply with the LoRaWAN specification, in the last year there has been a massive wave of traction due to the solutions and gateways coming to market with full interoperability,” says Niall Strachan, the chief software architect at Stream Technologies. “There has been an acceleration of interest over the last six months and that is becoming progressively more intense as enterprises and network operators use Stream’s IoT-X platform to manage

their private or public networks – and not just low power ones.”

That’s an interesting development that is seeing the stranglehold of cellular networks on IoT device provisioning at the lower data end of the sector start to erode. “The cellular players are beginning to be challenged significantly by LPWA,” confirms Strachan. “Low power challenges the traditional low use cellular market place and, with 2G sunsetting starting to appear in network operators’ strategies, we’re seeing customers migrate to alternative technologies.”

“With traditional cellular data being provided on a national network run by an incumbent cellular operator, the trade off between cost and the quality is not necessarily making all users happy,” he adds. “Some of our customers don’t require all the capabilities of cellular so are now considering or in the process of deploying their own LoRaWAN or paying for access to a public LoRaWAN if it’s available. When customers start to crunch the numbers for deploying a network privately for their exclusive usage it starts to become attractive.”

Both Strachan and Shakoor agree that organisations which choose to build a private network could see it pay for itself by selling access for different solutions. “Customers can start off with a single account that manages a private network but then migrate to a platform as a service offering with customer segregation, subscriber management and billing services to enable the customer to generate revenue from selling network access to third parties and using the profit to subsidise running their own solution on the same network,” Strachan says, emphasising the substantial security and resilience benefits in operating a private network via the IoT-X platform.

The versatility of the low power technologies is part of their appeal. “With LoRaWAN, and LPWA in general, the market will be driven by locations where people need to get data from,” Shakoor says. “Once a LoRaWAN is deployed and ▼

The arrival into commercial reality of low power radio technologies is democratising access to connectivity. Where once enterprises would have had to engage with cellular network operators or specialist providers of traditional, high power radio networks or rely on the limited characteristics of VHF radio, they are now enabled to deploy LPWA technologies quickly and simply themselves. This gives greater control to the organisation and enables it to maintain security across its deployment sites.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH STREAM TECHNOLOGIES 54

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Niall Strachan: There has been a global avalanche of new deployments and a push to commercialise existing networks over the last six months

solutions are available, it is then relatively easy to begin to commercialise and monetise these solutions as the market appetite gathers momentum.”

Nevertheless, LPWA technologies will not be the only option. Shakoor points to narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), the LPWA technology that is being developed as a 3GPP standard. “The reality is this could enable low power networks over existing cellular infrastructure and that is a good offering to have and co-exist beside other technologies,” he explains. “However, a lot of people still want the ability to deploy privately. In addition, the cost of NB-IoT hasn’t been defined yet so we could see national LoRaWAN networks compete with national NB-IoT networks on both a technical and commercial basis.”

“The main driving factor behind technology choice will be the price, but I don’t believe that if an operator announces an NB-IoT network tomorrow that there will be many solutions available,” he adds. “However, there are already a significant and growing number of LoRaWAN solutions ready to be commercialised.”

Strachan nevertheless sees both technologies coexisting. “NB-IoT is coming and of course we will support and integrate it,” he says. “Our philosophy has always been to remain technology agnostic, supporting the widest range of connectivity protocols. In the future narrowband IoT devices will be managed on our IoT-X platform with the same dashboard, APIs and billing system exactly the same as any existing cellular, satellite or LPWA subscriber today. Because of this approach we can make it very easy set up a network regardless of technology or geographic location. IoT-X also future-proofs the incumbent organisation in terms of its choice and variety of deployed connectivity types.”

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Mohsen Shakoor: We see many different approaches from larger enterprises that are considering or deploying LPWA as part of their IoT strategy

That is where Shakoor and Strachan see Stream Technologies adding the most value. “We have no axe to grind,” confirms Shakoor. “We want to enable a secure and reliable network connection for all our customers. We won’t push one technology over another. We will recommend services and technologies so long as they are resilient and fit the specific needs of each partner.”

Strachan adds that the company’s wealth of experience in IoT is in strong demand from customers. “People ask for our professional services and advice because we support so many different connectivity options that may suit their requirements, and we have seen many different approaches; both good and bad.” he says. “We have a deep understanding of connectivity and can advise and help find and deploy the right solution that fits their needs. In some occasions there can be a higher level of complexity to consider with a lower power solution. In theory they’re simpler and cheaper to operate but, when people start to think of deploying their own networks and the subsequent management of that network, it can become more difficult than simply paying to use a pre-deployed public network.”

Low power technologies are ushering in a new era of greater connection choices, some of which are bewildering to a market that has been constrained by technical limitation up to now. It’s clear that there are now solutions available to suit most use cases and it is the use cases that will determine technology selection and drive wider adoption. Only a little more guidance is needed to truly enable IoT users to gain the optimum performance from their LPWA strategy. Flexible platforms such as Stream Technologies’ IoT-X platform provide the means by which nonspecialised enterprises can become commercial network operators.

www.streamtechnologies.com

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STANDARDS

Worried about 2G turn-off? 4G standards have IoT covered Among the billions of devices predicted to make up the Internet of Things (IoT), many demand range and mobility that suggest a low-data-rate GSM connection is the ideal M2M data channel, writes Joerg Koepp 2G offers adequate performance and great coverage and reliability, but some operators are keen to turn these off to concentrate resources on their higher-value 3G and 4G subscribers. A press release issued last spring by Ovum analyst Nicole McCormick added an extra dose of uncertainty by suggesting that some might axe their 3G networks first, without suggesting any reprieve for 2G. The author, Joerg Koepp, is market segment manager at Rohde & Schwarz

Fortunately, GSM standards makers have considered the needs of IoT applications and made provision for machine-type communications (MTC) within the latest LTE Releases, 12 and 13, which are now being finalised.

These standards have not been easy to establish, and neither are they extensive, because the types of applications likely to communicate over cellular networks are extremely diverse and have a wide variety of requirements.

Power and cost concerns To provide broad support, the specifications now emerging are focused on a small number of optimisations. The latest Release 12 document, for example, establishes a Power-Saving Mode (PSM) and a new class of simple, low-cost LTE devices known as Category 0. PSM is especially important for battery-operated devices. Device category 0 addresses the requirement for low cost by having only 50% of the complexity of a category 1 modem.

In PSM the front-end circuitry is turned off, but the device remains registered in the network and so is always ready to send messages. This saves power in applications that must send data periodically, but is not suitable if a fast response or time-critical reaction is required. End-to-end tests are essential for matching the application behaviour to the network behaviour, such as to determine the optimal timer values for idle mode and power-saving mode.

The Category 0 specification supports data rates up to 1Mbps, which allows low-cost LTE modems by minimising processingpower and memory

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requirements. Manufacturers can also eliminate full duplex mode and multiple antennas, hence saving the requirement for the duplex filters that are otherwise needed to prevent interference between the transmitter and receiver. Some Category 0 devices are already being developed and will probably be introduced in 2016.

More and better Release 13 is where the march towards LTE for M2M really hits its stride and assumes the title LTE-M. Significant changes including lower uplink/downlink data rates, lower bandwidth and reduced transmit power will all contribute to lowering cost. Further reductions in power consumption are also planned. LTE-M will thus offer a solution for applications with responsetime requirements that prevent the use of PSM as provisioned in Release 12.

LTE-M will introduce other techniques to increase range, such as multiple repetitions of data or less stringent time and error requirements. These will be useful for devices that are dispersed over a large geographical area â&#x20AC;&#x201C; sensors in agricultural applications, as just one example - or smart meters installed under extreme receive conditions such as in a basement.

Low-Power WAN (LP-WAN) technologies have been presented as alternatives to GSM, as industries seek a future-proof network free of the threats of closure that surround 2G and 3G. Sigfox and LoRa are among the most widely known, while others include Weightless-N and RPMA. At this point it is worth noting that the GSM Association (GSMA) has launched its own LPWAN initiative. Infrastructure, modem and chipset manufacturers are currently working on this with mobile service providers. Field trials are under way, and the committee has already put forward a narrowband IoT standard, NB-IoT. NB-IoT aims to ensure extremely low power consumption and costs, while maximising reception in buildings and supporting large numbers of devices with very little data traffic.

Clearly the GSMA has identified tremendous value in the opportunities the IoT can offer for its members, and is working hard to ensure the data from as many of the IoTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s billions of nodes as possible will be carried over GSM networks. We can expect the results of the current initiatives to have a powerful influence on the new 5G standards as these emerge.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

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IOT CLOUD PLATFORMS

Cloud platforms offer practical means to access sensor networks in near real-time

With the proliferation of billions of IoT devices on the horizon, platform providers are increasingly looking to the cloud as the most efficient way of meeting the IoT challenge. The inevitable question however is why choose a cloud-based solution? Most providers have their own take on the question but there are some common points of agreement, writes Peter Dykes

It is also important to know where devices are located geographically, which devices are active as well as managing the devices that have access to the servers along with the firmware. Finally, it is vital to have enough storage and computing power for data processing. When data is aggregated from large sensor fleets that produce millions of data records per day, it is important to have enough capacity to store data and adequate computing power to process it. For many industries, it is vital that the data is available in real-time and most have realised that, while near real-time access to sensor data can bring enormous value, only a cloud-based platform can achieve this satisfactorily.

Time to value While speed of data access, along with automation is high among the advantages of choosing a cloud-based IoT solution, cloud providers also offer other services that help customers handle IoT challenges and reduce time to value. The key element of the IoT offer is a

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gateway service that can handle a range of various input protocols, and provides device authentication and authorisation. Most cloud service providers also provide an SDK (software development kit) that supports a range of programming languages and devices.

Examples of such services are: AWS (Amazon Web Services) IoT, Microsoft’s Azure IoT hub and IBM Cloud. All of these platforms handle a range of protocols and provide a gateway to other cloud services, thus ensuring storage, real-time processing and data analytics. Some providers have however developed their own platforms, either internally or through acquisition, Sierra Wireless being a case in point.

In-house platforms Olivier Beaujard, the vice president of market development at Sierra Wireless, explains: “AirVantage was born because we realised that many of our customers had enormous numbers of devices connected and they needed a way to monitor them and perform software upgrades.

Our first offering therefore was built around device management using the OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) platform developed for the mobile phone industry.”

The company has come a long way since then and having acquired two MVNOs in the last couple of years, it now offers an IoT platform based solely on cellular connectivity which comes with its own billing and application enablement, and the built-in SDK can be used by the customer to build applications specific to their requirements. ▼

When building a new IoT solution, providers face a number of challenges. First there is the issue of scalability of the servers that need to handle persistent connections protocols like XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), which was originally designed for instant messaging and online presence detection in near real-time but has found new purpose in IoT. Support must also be provided for a range of IoT standard protocols because in a typical IoT network there are usually a range of different devices, each type of which uses different protocols.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

There is another difference between cloud-based IoT platforms but which has more to do with the markets they are aimed at than with the technology which underpins them. IoT for the connected home covers a range of end points from refrigerators and air conditioning to fire alarms and intrusion detection and much more besides. Some companies have specifically targeted this market in spite of the fact that the industrial IoT market is far more likely to dominate the IoT scene as a whole.

Essentially, Openstack is, like any other cloud platform, it is an orchestrator and is the favoured platform for creating a private cloud from open source components. Everything one normally associates with a cloud platform is available through Openstack. By creating virtual machines (VMs), it connects to endpoints, storage and analytics and can dynamically scale on demand.

In common with other cloud platforms, Openstack is also API driven, so writing interfaces for modules and sensors is fairly straightforward.

Industrial vs consumer platforms

However, Mirantis, which is a pure-play Openstack vendor, is working to integrate containerised technology into Openstack. Why? Kamesh Pemmaraju, the vice president of product marketing at the company, explains: “Container technology is taking off. It’s the new hype in the IT industry. It is interesting from the point of view of IoT because it has a very small footprint, uses very few resources and is therefore particularly useful for running on end points.”

Rod McLane, the senior director of marketing at US start up Ayla Networks says: “In the industrial IoT market, the companies that are looking to integrate IoT technology have a fear of breaking things. While they want to add connectivity, they don’t want it to shut down the operation if there’s a problem so they move comparatively slowly. In contrast, manufacturers that are making products for the consumer space are driven by the fear of being left behind, so they move much faster.”

He cites the example of thermostat and smoke detector manufacturer NestLabs, which was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion in 2014, saying that following the acquisition, other manufacturers in the same space realised they would lose market share if they didn’t have a line of connected thermostats and smoke detectors themselves and moved quickly to redress the situation. For this reason alone, he says, Ayla Networks decided to target the consumer-facing IoT market.

Ayla’s IoT platform, which is built on AWS, has most of the characteristics of an industrial counterpart, but there are differences in the overall offering. For example, service level agreements (SLAs) are not something Ayla has to worry about because most consumers would not be concerned if a ceiling fan stopped working for a few minutes, whereas a similar outage could be catastrophic for an oil refinery. Neither does Ayla have to write new networking or security code for each customer.

Instead, customers enter the parameters and data points they want to collect via a common graphical user interface (GUI), which they can reconfigure as they develop their products. In common with industrial platforms however, scalability and security were major factors in the design of Ayla’s platform because from the outset it targeted large manufacturing corporations which made millions of consumer products every year.

Basically, a container consists of an entire runtime environment which includes an application along with all its dependencies, libraries and other binaries, as well as the configuration files needed to run it, all in a single package. Containerisation differs from virtualisation in that the latter includes an entire operating system as well as the application. A server running three virtual machines (VMs) would require a hypervisor and three separate operating systems running on top of it. Conversely, a server running three containerised applications would only require a single operating system as each container shares the operating system with the other containers.

This means that containers are much more lightweight and use far fewer resources than virtual machines, meaning speed, and the ability to automate processes, is greatly increased.

Kamesh Pemmaraju: Container technology has a very small footprint and uses very few resources

Pemmaraju points out however that with containers running on the end points and VMs running in the data centre, there are networking challenges around automation and orchestration once more. “Our aim,” he says, “is to bring it all together onto one platform and to this end we are working very closely with Google on Kubernetes, the container orchestration software.”

Innovation

He explains that Kubernetes, the name of which is derived from the Greek word for helmsman or pilot, does everything with containers that Openstack does with VMs. Pemmaraju adds, “If we bring containers and VMs together, it means we can run containers where it makes sense and run VMs where that makes sense, all from a single control plane and a single set of APIs (application programming interfaces). That is our vision.”

It would seem then that existing cloud platforms perform all the functions necessary for the implementation of commercial IoT networks in both the industrial and consumer-facing markets.

But as with every new technology, there is room for improvement and to see what the next developments are likely to be, one needs look no further than the open source community, and in particular to developers of Openstack.

The implications of this development work could be far reaching for the IoT community because experience shows that with any technology that involves million if not billions of end-users, speed and the capacity to serve those end points is finite and new ways have to be developed to meet these challenges. This will be as true for IoT as it was for 2G.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Olivier Beaujard: We developed a platform because our customers had enormous numbers of devices connected

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INTERVIEW

Address the device management dilemma with cloud-based device management Of all the challenges presented by IoT, device management is one of the most complex. In the industrial IoT sector, for each of the widelydiffering device types connected to an IoT network, the device management platform must provide what is in effect a lifecycle management function, from activation to decommissioning

However, because there is no single standard for bringing together such a diverse range of fixed-function devices and software, which range in terms of development from legacy to cutting edge, a proprietary interface is required if they are all to be managed from a

common platform. The problem is that while building an IoT point solution for a specific type of device is relatively simple, building a platform that can handle a wide range of devices is far more complex. For an IoT solution provider, the most effective approach involves partnering with those players that already have the appropriate platforms that can communicate with specific types of devices, that can capture and analyse the intelligence within them, streamline the management of those devices and enable the solution provider to abstract the underlying complexity to a common interface.

Added to this complexity is the inevitable regulation, which can vary not only from one

â&#x2013;ź

The picture is further complicated by the fact that many companies will have been in business for many years and will have hundreds, if not thousands of assets deployed, most of which will be in different stages of their lifecycle and getting all of them connected on a single platform is a daunting task. Not surprisingly, many providers have opted to use a cloud-based management platform for flexibility and ease of deployment.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH WIND RIVER 60

IoT Now - September / October 2016

INTERVIEW

Security is taken care of by means of an authentication model in which the device and the server both have certificates so that they authenticate each other

industry to another, but also from country to country. Indeed, even regional variations in regulatory requirements can cause difficulties.

Perhaps the biggest problem for IoT solutions providers in terms of regulation is that the authorities are only just becoming aware of the potential size of the market and what needs to be done in order to ensure the successful growth of the IoT market globally.

Cloud include the use of device-side APIs that enable connection to the various devices.

“We have to be proactive in influencing regulation and we have to drive standards and interoperability,” says Santhosh Nair, the vice president and general manager of the IoT Helix Cloud Solutions business at Wind River.

“Governments have started noticing IoT and how big [the IoT] economy is and there are already a lot of conversations taking place globally by governments and regulators to standardise a spectrum for short range communications and the protocols that are used to communicate between devices.”

The Wind River platform also contains an extensive abstraction library which performs a similar function in that the sensor abstraction layer allows the customer to interact with sensors without dealing with the low-level code. Helix Device Cloud is part of Wind River’s end-to-end product portfolio, which addresses IoT needs from devices at the edge, to the gateway, into the critical network infrastructure, and up into the cloud.

Another big issue for IoT solutions providers is security. Indeed, security of data and devices is one of the primary considerations for companies looking to add connectivity to their assets.

Reports of data hacks occur on an almost daily basis and while the theft of personal information is a serious matter, hacks aimed at networks to which for example driverless cars, power utilities or healthcare sensors are connected, could have devastating consequences. The problem with IoT is that the more devices become connected, the greater the potential for malicious intrusion.

“When it comes to security, you cannot rely on a patchwork approach to mitigate the problem, you have to look at the system as a whole,” says Nair. “If any one area is weak, the entire system is at risk.” He adds that it is also necessary to consider security risks that may occur over the lifetime of a device for example, when it is taken out of commission or removed from the system for some other reason.

So what does a device management solution consist of? Wind River, a provider of software for the IoT, has a device management platform called Helix Device Cloud, which enables bi-directional control from the device to the data centre. Some of the high-level capabilities of Helix Device

IoT Now - September / October 2016

“The idea is we have an agent that enables customers to write device-level APIs without worrying about the details of the device,” explains Nair. “These APIs abstract the underlying complexity and allow the customer to read and write to the device.”

Santhosh Nair: If any one area is weak, the entire system is at risk

Security is taken care of by means of an authentication model in which the device and the server both have certificates so that they authenticate each other. This ensures that the device is talking to the right server and vice versa. Other capabilities which are vital to efficient device management include the ability to perform diagnostics, software updates and a roll-back function which, if a malfunction is detected, means the device configuration can be reset to an earlier configuration which was known to work. In addition, Wind River can collect data from a particular network and send it to one of the customer’s other servers sitting on a public or private cloud so that by using a standard enterprise IT interface and interfaces from the company’s extensibility library, which includes items such as cloud-to-cloud connectors, the customer can blend the network data with its enterprise data and, for example, run analytical visualisations of what’s happening on the network and how sensors are performing.

Probably the most important feature of an IoT device management platform however, it its ability to evolve over time. While it is important to be able to manage devices and sensors embedded in existing products, new devices with different technical and security requirements will in evitable come to market and it is therefore vital that management platforms are not only flexible, but also futureproof.

www.windriver.com

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FEATURE

Build digital trust to unleash the full commercial potential of IoT The API revolution is fuelling digital transformation across a spectrum of industries and opening the way for new IoT use cases. But capturing the full commercial potential of the IoT will depend on addressing lingering consumer concerns over consent and privacy, explains Eve Maler

Today's new API-powered economy is disrupting known business models. The financial services sector, for example, is currently exploring open

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platforms in a bid to compete with the likes of PayPal and Amazon, which have used API-driven services to make inroads into the payment industry. It's a move being encouraged by state institutions like the UK Treasury, which recently tasked the industry-led Open Banking Working Group (OBWG) with the development of a new framework for using open APIs in order to encourage innovation and boost competition.

But while APIs are becoming the de facto integration model for IT systems, they are the fundamental building blocks of the IoT. Providing the all important interface between the 'Internet'

▼

Application programming interfaces (APIs) are driving increasingly sophisticated digital business ecosystems as leading companies adopt APIs to build innovative applications and services. Indeed, the rise of the public API has enabled a spectrum of industries – from telecommunications and media, to finance, travel and tourism – as well as national government agencies, to pursue broadbased digital transformation strategies that prioritise new processes and workflows.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

and 'Things', APIs expose the data that enables multiple devices to be combined and connected – and that has considerable implications for cyber security.

How trustworthy are APIs? Since APIs expose data, services and transactions, enabling assets to be created, shared and reused to build new products or offerings, it's a given that APIs designed and built with security in mind will provide protection for every application they enable. However, the application risks multiply significantly should digital identity or authentication not be handled well.

Insecure APIs are an issue currently impacting motor vehicle manufacturers whose cars are becoming more connected thanks to on-board WiFi and integrations with smartphone apps that allow car owners to track their location or remotely lock or unlock car doors. But earlier this year, a security expert exposed how security vulnerabilities contained in the Nissan LEAF smartphone interface made it easy to run API commands via an internet connection. This would enable a potential hacker to turn on a car's heated seats or air conditioning to drain the electronic vehicle's battery – or easily monitor a driver's movements.

Security flaws such as this serve to fuel consumer fears of potentially intrusive new technologies and continue to spark general concern about the risk of terrorist cyber attacks on IoT devices.

Should a hacker successfully attack IoT endpoints like a medical device, a car, or a smart city's traffic management systems, the consequences could be considerable.

But privacy and data protection issues are another primary concern for consumers and service providers alike. API developers will need to carefully consider these challenges in the context of local regulatory requirements and user needs. For example, it's simply not realistic to expect users to utilise a companion mobile app to provide consent or configure their sharing preferences every time they interact with a smart device.

Addressing key privacy challenges The complexity of IoT value chains, and the number of stakeholders involved in the exchange and processing of data, raises significant regulatory compliance challenges. New data protection policies are being implemented around the world in an attempt to address the IoT ecosystem, but rules about data security vary widely across global territories.

The EU arguably has the most highly developed policies on privacy and protection, and the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will drive better security and privacy in the IoT and will have a direct impact on device manufacturers, application developers and other entities involved in bringing IoT solutions to market.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

Due for implementation in 2018, the new regulation requires 'privacy by design and privacy by default', conferring on EU citizens substantive rights in relation to their personal data – including the right to be forgotten, data portability rights, and the right to object to automated decision making. The issue of explicit consent in relation to the processing of an individual's data is another primary consideration.

As the regulatory landscape continues to evolve, developers and manufacturers will need to be fully aware of the requirements of multiple watchdogs and regulators around the globe.

Similarly, data security standards are currently being evolved to ensure that data is securely collected and that internet communications can be appropriately authenticated, utilising deep encryption to avoid eavesdropping.

The author, Eve Maler, is the vice president of Innovation and Emerging Technology at ForgeRock

Engendering digital trust The promise of the IoT is vast, but so too is the potential for security flaws and privacy lapses.

New data privacy methods and technologies will soon make an appearance in the US and the EU, and tech companies involved in creating IoT devices and applications will need to keep abreast of these changes and ensure the APIs they use are secure and compliant.

User-Managed Access (UMA) is an important new standard in this area. Defining a protection framework that features a unified control point for authorising who and what can access a variety of cloud, mobile and IoT data sources, it empowers developers to incorporate UMA protection and authorisation for API enablement into applications, services and devices. The advantage conferred by UMA is that while it protects any API on a standardised basis, it also lets people share directly with other parties or revoke access whenever they see fit. In other words, individuals can set, view and change sharing preferences from a single online control console.

Companies operating in the health data-sharing ecosystem have been quick to grasp the opportunities made possible by UMA. Companies like Philips are developing IoT platforms that will transform how healthcare and medicine is delivered, enabling patients to selectively share data with family members and health professionals. Organisations like ARM are also undertaking pioneering work on developing strong trust models for sensor-to-device-toservice security.

Companies operating in the health datasharing ecosystem have been quick to grasp the opportunities made possible

by UMA

As the regulatory landscape around security, consent and privacy standards continues to evolve, developers and device manufacturers will need to ensure that the integration APIs they use are bullet proof – and have undergone rigorous evaluation to assure end-to-end effectiveness and compliance. Those stakeholders that can demonstrate privacy compliance will win consumer trust and gain competitive advantage in an increasingly connected world.

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INTERVIEW

Systems, processes and people need to collaborate to fight cyber criminals on their own terms As distribution system operators (DSOs) continue their digital evolutions, cybersecurity challenges continue to grow as the stakes are raised and new forms of criminality circle energy distributors, writes Aurelio Blanquet who is speaking at the SmartSec Europe 2016 event on 29-30 November 2016 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands The heightened threat level being addressed isn’t necessarily a new challenge for DSOs because they have always faced risks from crime whether in theft of assets, from terrorism or the theft of energy itself. However, digitalisation adds a further layer of risk on top of the traditional threats facing the sector.

“Digitalisation is the future so the security of digital becomes a priority,” acknowledges Aurelio Blanquet, the chairman of EE-ISAC, a publicprivate partnership that brings four major European utility companies together with technical universities, governmental bodies and secure technology providers. “The main challenge is to find and define cyber security policy.”

“We are aware by now that the energy sector is a critical – maybe the most critical – sector for our modern society,” he adds. “This has made the energy sector very attractive for cyber attacks

and cyber criminals are looking at ways to exploit digital vulnerabilities. The higher level of remote and interconnected digital assets creates a different vulnerability than a traditional physical user and this must be taken into account.”

Reliability and resilience remain the focus of infrastructure operators but concerns about reputational damage are starting to gain greater attention. “Reliability and resilience across the European energy infrastructures are a continuing challenge but digitalisation, within that, is becoming of utmost importance and becomes a priority in terms of avoiding the theft of critical data,” Blanquet says. “DSOs need to secure their data in order to maintain their credibility and to keep the company’s value in terms of their image.”

Regulation alone won’t be sufficient. “All aspects must be secure from physical to cyber and to

▼

We are aware by now that the energy sector is a critical – maybe the most critical – sector for our modern society

IN ASSOCIATION WITH PHOENIX FORUMS 64

IoT Now - September / October 2016

build a cyber policy we need to look at our systems, processes and our people in addition to regulation,” he adds. “The most challenging issue is the culture and it has taken great effort to move the cybersecurity discussion on from being a technical or IT issue to being a board level consideration.”

Blanquet believes a single company approach won’t be effective since threats proliferate in so many different forms and experience needs to be shared. However, hackers collaborate and so should DSOs.

needs to be attacked on the same basis.”

The mission of EE-ISAC is to enable this levelling of the playing field. “We are improving the resilience and security of European energy infrastructure through sharing and enabling joint efforts for threat analysis,” explains Blanquet.

“We’re improving resilience by sharing what we know, what we know we don’t know and what we need to know so we can have the proper answers within our community and our members can use these to take their own effective measures.”

“There’s a very collaborative hacker community which is well-organised, well co-ordinated and long-established with a high level of expertise,” he says. “Individual hackers are seldom linked to cyber attacks which typically are made by groups of hackers collaborating to attack digital infrastructures.”

Blanquet says the next steps for EE-ISAC are to deliver value to members by building knowledge and sharing it with members, attracting new members to widen the knowledge base, to increase the visibility of the organisation to put it at the centre of security policy and other regulation and, finally, to have ISAC associations with other regions and countries.

“If we collaborate we get away from being one step behind the hackers and can get one step in front,” he adds. “We need to adopt the same mindset as the attackers we face. Cyber crime has no boundaries and no working hours so it

“We’ve started working with organisations in the US and Japan,” says Blanquet. “As we build an international community of ISAC organisations from Europe across the world our communities will be strengthened.”

Aurelio Blanquet: The most challenging issue is the culture

About SmartSec Europe 2016 Aurelio Blanquet will be speaking at the 3rd annual SmartSec Europe event, which takes place 2930 November 2016, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. On the first day he will be on the Strategic Drivers Panel – assessing the emerging IoT landscape, its implications for smart utilities, and how cyber-resilience can be achieved. On the second day, he will be on Regulatory Developments Panel – determining how European level regulation must evolve to better support smart utility cybersecurity investments, priorities, and implementation plans.

Drawing together more than 120 IT and OT cyber security leads from European TSO and DSO organisations, this techno-commercial programme provides a comprehensive review of the latest utility cyber-security investment strategies, regulatory and standards activity, technical implementation experiences, and future technology innovation and partnership requirements. The case study focused agenda is complemented by a series of intimate round table discussions, a technology innovation panel session, a live demo lab of the latest tools, a solution zone displaying state-of-the-art utility specific cyber-security solutions, and an evening networking reception facilitating interaction and connection in a relaxed and informal environment. All the information, inspiration and interaction needed to propel your cyber security programme to the next level.

For more information visit: www.smartsec-europe.com

IoT Now - September / October 2016

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EVENT PREVIEW

Opening keynote for European Utility Week 2016 to set the scene for Europe’s leading smart energy event European Utility Week (EUW), is an event for the smart utility community, taking place at Fira Barcelona Gran Via, Barcelona, Spain from 15-17 November 2016. The Summit kicks of with a highly relevant opening keynote panel session in which panellists will consider the energy revolution in a roundtable debate

The session will be moderated by Carol Stimmel, the chief advisor, author and founder of Manifest Mind, and will explore topics including the integration of renewables, sustainability and energy efficiency, the state of urgency and collaboration and the changing workforce. The Clevel utility panellist line up will include: • Sara Bell, CEO, Tempus Energy, UK • Inken Braunschmidt, CIO, RWE, Germany • Blanca Losada, CTO, Gas Natural Fenosa and CEO, Gas Natural Fenosa Engineering, Spain • Thierry Lepercq, executive vice president, Research, Technology & Innovation, Europe Speaking about the keynote, content director Florence Coullet, said: “The energy revolution encapsulates one of the biggest trends in a sector which is adapting to new levels of connectivity and changing customer behaviours. It’s a vital topic and reflects the important role that EUW plays in bringing the major players in smart energy together, to explore the state of the industry and where it’s going. We hope 2016 sets the bar even higher and look forward to welcoming our guests to Barcelona in November.”

This panel session is part of the Official Opening Keynote Plenary Session on 15 November where other topics will be discussed including: • The Energy Market(s) of The Future: Key Focus Areas Seen From a European Government’s Perspective with expert speaker Christian Pilgaard Zinglersen, the deputy permanent

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secretary at the Danish Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Climate and vice-chair of the Governing Board of the International Energy Agency • The Time is Now: DSOs Driving the Way Forward Towards a Successful Energy Transformation in Europe with João Torres, CEO, EDP Distribuição and chairman of EDSO, Portugal • Agility in Energy - Unleashing the Power of the Industry with Ralf Christian, CEO, Energy Management Division, Siemens AG, Germany So far more than 140 speakers from Europe and beyond have been confirmed to speak during the Summit programme over three days. Other speakers include: • Paul Jan Jacobs, vertical leader Mobility, Eneco • Andy Perry, CSO and head of Supply Operations, Tempus Energy • Michael Flipper, vice president of T&I Strategy and head of Innovation Centre Systems, E.ON • Maher Chebbo, president, ESMIG • Mercè Griera i Fisa, project officer, European Commission • Nicolas Arcauz, Global and Smart Metering director, Iberdrola • Philip Lewis, CEO, VaasaETT • Caroline Ledl, head of product development, Wien Energie • Christian Buchel, deputy CEO, ERDF • Pierre Bernard, CEO, Friends of the Super Grid • Clara Poletti, head of Department, Italian Regulatory Authority for Electricity Gas and Water • Ronnie Belmans, executive director, Global Smart Grid Federation • Jean-Marie Bemtgen, senior policy expert, European Commission, DG Energy ▼

The panel session, entitled ‘Are We Ready for The Energy Revolution?’, will explore how the utility business model can be future-proofed in a changing environment that includes new technologies and shifting customer behaviours.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

CASE STUDY

EUW has also released the programmes for both the event’s Summit and Hub Sessions. The strategic Summit is a knowledge-sharing platform designed to facilitate the needs of C-level executives discussing the challenges facing the industry and the solutions that will help transform it.

This year, the Summit will delve deep into content around market design, digitalisation, consumer centricity and business models for the following themes: T&D, The Intelligent Grid, Retail, Sustainable and Smart City, ICT and Data Management.

The Hub Sessions on the exhibition floor are different from the Summit as they are free to attend for all visitors, they offer a dynamic format

and engaging Q&As, allowing attendees to participate in topic-led sessions.

For the first time in 2016, the Hub Sessions event will also include two new launch topics: Energy Revolution Europe and Intelligent Buildings Europe. Both launches will be part of the Hub Session programme and will have their own focus area in the form of a zone on the exhibition floor.

The other Hub Session topics include: • • • • •

Storage Smart water and smart gas Big data and analytics Intelligent grid Smart metering, smart homes and end use

For more information about European Utility Week please visit: www.european-utility-week.com

About European Utility Week As the business, innovation and information platform connecting the smart utility community, EUW focuses on regional and global developments in grid optimisation, renewables, energy storage, smart metering, smart cities, smart homes, energy services and efficiency, intelligent buildings, data management, analytics and IoT, cybersecurity, smart gas and smart water.

The event serves as an annual meeting point for the community and will be attended by 12,000 international visitors, 450 speakers and 600 exhibitors.

Innovation underlines every element of the show with a special focus on connecting people from all levels of the utility value chain from technology giants to start-ups and from senior-level experts to young talent.

IoT Now - September / October 2016

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EVENTS Rethink! Internet of Retail Minds Europe London, UK 26-27 Sept 2016 www.rethink-iot-retail.com/en/booknow

Smart Cities Week 2016 Washington, USA 27-29 Sept 2016 http://www.smartcitiesweek.com

Tec Expo 2016 London, UK

European Utility Week Barcelona, Spain

24-25 Oct 2016 www.the-tech-expo.com

15-17 Nov 2016 https://l.feathr.co/european-utilityweek-iot-now-e

Internet of Manufacturing USA Chicago, USA 25-26 Oct 2016 http://www.theinternetofbusiness.co.uk /manufacturingchicago

IoT Solutions World Congress Barcelona, Spain 25-27 Oct 2016 http://www.iotsworldcongress.com

IoT Planet International Trade Show 2016 Grenoble, France Internet of Insurance USA New York, USA 27-28 Sept 2016 http://www.internetofbusiness.net/insu rancenyc

Blue University LIVE Copenhagen, Germany 4 October 2016 https://www.bluetooth.com/newsevents/bluetooth-events/trainingevents

M2M Summit Dusseldorf, Germany 5-6 October 2016 www.m2m-summit.com

1-2 Nov 2016 http://lpwanforum.com

Smart Home Summit Palo Alto, USA 1-2 Nov 2016 https://smarthomesevent.com

TU Automotive Europe Munich, Germany 2-3 Nov 2016 http://www.tu-auto.com/europe/

Internet of Banking London, UK

IoT Tech Expo North America Santa Clara, USA 20-21 Oct 2016 http://www.iottechexpo.com/ northamerica/

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Embedded Conference Scandinavia 2016 Stockholm, Sweden 22-23 Nov 2016 http://www.embeddedconference.se

Connected Claims Europe London, UK 28-29 Nov 2016 http://www.iotnow.com/2016/09/05/51985connected-claims-europe

29-30 Nov 2016 http://www.internetofbusiness.net/avia tion/

3-4 Nov 2016 http://securityofthingsworldusa.com/en/

18-19 Oct 2016 http://www.internetofbusiness.net/ retailnyc/

21-22 Nov 2016 https://iotworldeurope.com

Internet of Aviation (Vinelake) London, UK

Security of Things World USA San Diego, USA

Internet of Retail USA New York, USA

Internet of Things World 2016 Dublin, Ireland

LPWAN World Forum 2016 London, UK

18-19 Oct 2016 http://www.theinternetofbusiness.co.uk /retailnyc

13-14 Oct 2016 http://deliveryofthingsworldusa.com/ en/

21-22 Nov 2016 http://rethinkcloudonomic.com/en/book-now/

25-27 Oct 2016 http://www.iot-planet.org

Internet of Retail USA New York, USA

Delivery of Things World USA San Diego, USA

Rethink! Cloudonomic Minds Europe London, UK

8-9 Nov 2016 http://www.internetofbusiness.net/ banking

IoT World Forum 2016 London, UK 29-30 Nov 2016 http://iotinternetofthingsconference.com

IoTInvest London, UK 1 Dec 2016 http://www.internetofbusiness. net/iotinvest/

Insurance IoT USA Chicago, USA 15-16 Nov 2016 http://events.insurancenexus.com/insur anceiotusa/

Intelligent Sensor Networks Eindhoven, The Netherlands 15th Nov 2016 http://www.isnconference.com

Connected Fleets USA Atlanta, USA 15-16 Nov 2016 http://www.tu-auto.com/fleet/

Smart Cities Summit Boston, USA 6-7 Dec 2016 https://smartcitiesevent.com

2nd Annual IoT for Utilities San Jose, USA 6-7 Dec 2016 http://energyconferencenetwork.com/ iot-utilities-2016/

IoT Now - September / October 2016

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IoT Now: ISSN 2397-2793

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016 • VOLUME 6 • ISSUE 4

MONETISING THE IoT SUPPLEMENT

AMDOCS INTERVIEW Accelerate consumer adoption by creating a seamless customer experience

INSIDE: Data-driven monetisation strategy • New business models for capitalising on IIoT • Aeris interview • Flexera and IoT Now preview new monetisation report

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CONTENTS

Monetising the IoT Supplement

S4

S6

MONETISING THE IOT

INTERVIEW

S10

S12

INTERVIEW

REPORT PREVIEW

IN THIS ISSUE S4

S6

MONETISING THE IOT Kate O’Flaherty says one app can make the business case for IoT but multiple apps enable monetisation to be achieved INTERVIEW: ACCELERATE ADOPTION AND CREATE A SEAMLESS EXPERIENCE TO MONETISE CONSUMER IOT Yuval Mayron, the general manager of Amdocs’ Internet of Things business unit tells Antony Savvas that service providers and OEMs need to work together to deliver the next technological revolution

S10 INTERVIEW: CAPITALISING ON IIOT REQUIRES NEW BUSINESS MODELS AND PROCESSES Eric Free, the senior vice president for strategic growth at Flexera Software, discusses four key business processes that are key to monetising the IoT S12

REPORT PREVIEW A preview of the new ‘Monetizing the IoT’ report, written

by IoT Now and supported by Flexera Software

S15

INTERVIEW Mohsen Mohseninia, the vice president of market development for Europe at Aeris, tells George Malim that monetisation is the focus as pilots and trials move into large scale deployments

The Amdocs IoT Monetization platform allows service providers to unleash the potential of consumer IoT by supporting multiple additional engagement models, such as white-label billing for the IoT provider, reselling IoT services direct to the consumer, or becoming an IoT services billing provider. The platform handles complex settlements across the different engagement models and manages the entire financial flow between all the involved parties. www.amdocs.com

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Supplement IoT Now - September / October 2016

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, stored, published or in any way reproduced without the prior written consent of the Publisher.

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MONETISING IOT

One application makes the business case for IoT, the others achieve monetisation IoT user organisations are moving towards a data driven strategy where deployments are utilised for multiple applications, writes Kate O’Flaherty

This evolving model is being driven by the huge amounts of data collected by businesses – dubbed big data – and their growing ability to analyse it. According to Ian Hughes, IoT analyst at 451 Research, companies are achieving greater efficiency gains by applying machine learning and analytics “to understand things better”.

Jon Collins, analyst at Gigaom, explains: “If you look at the architecture of IoT it’s about managing streaming data from multiple sources; putting it into a back end data store that can be accessed multi-dimensionally in real-time; and adding big data analytics alongside that.”

Everything in the industrial sectors can be improved in this way, says Hughes. For example, he says: “You can use less fuel, you

S4

can break down less and you don’t send so many people out in the field to fix things. This means you are bound to save money and maximise investment in the kit.”

Data mining As analytics systems improve, firms now have the infrastructure to perform data mining within IoT, says Theresa Bui, the head of enterprise product marketing for IoT cloud at Cisco Jasper. This gives them an enhanced ability to understand the customer and it is then possible to offer a better service, she says.

Bui explains: “People aren’t just adding devices into the field. They want a relationship with the customer and this is where the monetisation comes in. Instead of being a transaction based product sale, it’s a relationship where the vendor can sell new services and, at the same time, pull data showing how customers are using the solution.”

Bui cites the example of a connected robotic arm being used in a factory. “You have a quarter of a million robot arms used in multiple geographies. Any time the product is down is downtime for the factory, so it is ▼

Companies have historically monetised Internet ofThings (IoT) applications through efficiency improvements. This still stands, but the way businesses view their deployments is changing. User organisations are starting to look beyond investing in IoT platforms for a single deployment. Instead they are taking a wider view that investments can be used for multiple applications and therefore monetised better.

Supplement IoT Now - September / October 2016

MONETISING IOT

In the future, this business model will be widely applied to general products, says Hughes

valuable to be able to diagnose and predict issues; and have the ability to resolve problems remotely so you don’t need to send someone out.”

She adds: “This type of remote diagnostics is in itself a service; so the customer is buying an additional IoT based solution.”

homes will see the area reach its full potential.

“What will be a game-changer for most people will be the ability for an IoT system to monitor and alert, in real-time, problems with their heating system. In the very near future, it will be possible for your boiler to know which parts are about to fail and alert the energy company.”

With this in mind, the ability to use IoT data for multiple purposes is valuable to those looking to introduce extra revenue streams.

One firm already using IoT in this way is car manufacturer Tesla Motors, which is able to perform remote engine diagnostics as well as mine data from its devices, says Bui.

So while monetising the IoT comes from operational efficiency, it can also aid safety and risk management. Steve Baker, business development director at The Technology Partnership cites the example of car insurance firms placing devices in vehicles to monitor how users drive.

It has started to benefit from this approach. In 2014, when Tesla’s vehicles were recalled due to a safety problem, the manufacturer was able to quickly issue an over-the-air software update. “That understanding, and being able to use data to pin point the issue, increases efficiency for Tesla and makes it a better experience for the customer. That’s a company taking it a whole step further using data,” says Bui.

IoT’s future

Another use case that could see multiple gains from one deployment is smart cities, says Hughes, citing the example of lighting.

He says: “They aren’t just a light; they tend to be sensor nests of other things such as a camera to check parking spaces, or footfall.

IoT crosses silos and industries.”

The cross-over happens in consumer led markets as well, says Hughes. For example, one platform enabling two products might be a smart light bulb and a child safety device which would cause the home lights to flash red if the child was out of range.

Hughes says: “That is a service. IoT doesn’t care what things are, so there’s monetisation in crossing those boundaries.”

With this in mind, the energy sector is an industry that will make money from the further growth of IoT. Dmitry Bagrov, the UK managing director of technology consulting firm DataArt, says increased connectivity in

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Ian Hughes: IoT doesn’t care what things are, so there’s monetisation in crossing those boundaries

There is no doubt IoT’s potential is multidimensional. As firms start to realise the gains that can be had, the trend towards a multiple service model will soon become common.

In the future, this business model will be widely applied to general products, says Hughes. “Things will become a subscription product rather than a one-time buy. For example, a tyre manufacturer could charge you for how much you drive. This results in improved customer service, better products, brand loyalty and the customer is only paying for what they use. There are a lot of options, because IoT is so many things.”

This means that in the end, the monetisation comes on two levels, says Bui. The first is recurring from monthly subscriptions for a service. “Then it comes from a portfolio of services – so you can subscribe to more than one. That’s the real opportunity of IoT: it’s the enabler of recurring as well as new types of revenue.”

Bui thinks this will eventually see companies start to expand into areas outside their core offering. She cites the example of US security company Vivint. “They are starting to look outside of home security and automation and have tested services such as cloud storage.

All their products are managed in the cloud and they have this infrastructure: Why wouldn’t you want to connect another device in your house for a small additional fee?”

Dmitry Bagov: A game-changer for most people will be the ability for an IoT system to monitor and alert problems in realtime

Steve Baker: While monetising the IoT comes from operational efficiency, it can also aid safety and risk management

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INTERVIEW

Accelerating adoption and monetising consumer IoT – How to create a seamless customer experience As OEMs and service providers look to increase consumer IoT adoption, a seamless customer experience is vital, with simple exploration, registration and activation as the aims. Yuval Mayron, the general manager of the Amdocs Internet of Things business unit, tells Antony Savvas about how service providers and OEMs need to work together to deliver the next great technological revolution

The fact is that you no longer have to imagine it. All this information and much more is already available using technology which is enabling consumers to utilise smart connected devices equipped with numerous sensors. That same intelligent technology also lets you control your drone from your office, and even track your child's location from your smartphone.

The growth of the Internet of Things is the defining technology trend of the next ten years

The growth of the Internet of Things is the defining technology trend of the next ten years, says analyst firm Machina Research [in research published in November 2015], with billions of connected devices generating trillions of dollars of revenue. IoT covers a diverse range of enterprise and consumer use cases, each with their own characteristics and requirements.

“Each will also have its own requirements for monetisation,” said the Machina report. “Some will be simple, based on the transmission of data, but over time we expect the business models associated with IoT devices to be increasingly complex, encompassing the likes of multi-sided business models, data analytics, servitisation and data exchange.”

These changing business models bring with them more complex monetisation requirements. Machina Research looked at its global IoT forecasts “through the prism of monetisation” and identified that a “large, and growing proportion of the revenue associated

with IoT is related to more sophisticated monetisation opportunities”. Specifically, between 2014 and 2024, there is a total of US$1.3 trillion in IoT revenue that is available to companies that have sophisticated monetisation capabilities.

Machina Research identifies seven key capabilities required by a monetisation platform for the IoT: It must be scalable, open, real-time, flexible, transparent and secure, agile, and built with the diverse requirements of the IoT in mind.

But in spite of the many exciting consumer IoT solutions out there, says Amdocs, we’re not seeing widespread use of the technology.

In fact, the consumer IoT world has barely scratched the surface of its vast potential market and consumer adoption has been relatively low. With OEMs still struggling as they take their first steps in their digital transformation journey, now is the time to embrace IoT as the next technological revolution.

IoT Now: Why do you think consumers are slow to adopt IoT services?

Yuval Mayron: There are two main reasons for this low consumer IoT adoption rate. The first one is that there aren’t enough services – those which improve the quality of life – which bring real value to consumers. The second reason is the lack of a simple, intuitive end-to-end experience. OEMs are trying to address the service issue through innovation and the addition of value added services, while they’re postponing improvements to providing an end-to-end seamless experience.” ▼

Imagine a world where you can stay constantly updated about the location of your suitcase, the health of your car, and get alerts if the oil pressure in your motorbike is too low or before you have an engine failure.

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Yuval Mayron: There aren’t enough services which bring real value to consumers

IoT Now: One of the biggest problems standing in the way of IoT adoption is monetisation. What monetisation model do you believe can succeed in consumer IoT? YM: It’s clear today for most of the IoT device manufacturers that selling only hardware is not a sustainable business model for them whether they are large or small. The money will come from the service and the ongoing, on-demand payment from consumers in order to use the device.

Basic services are likely to be free but VAS (value added services) and premium services or content will require additional payment. This is a mature concept in the consumer connected device world.

The examples of Kindle enabling us to buy books, the Apple TV allowing us to order movies and the Xbox offering our kids games in real-time emphasises that this isn’t a new phenomenon.

These three successful IoT services are a strong reminder that OEMs need to embrace and dominate as many roles as possible in the service value chain in order to successfully monetise consumer IoT. Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are all great examples of companies which produce devices, control the operating system, and own the store from which the apps/content are purchased.

Controlling the value chain is vital for OEMs’ success and this is where they’re looking when they attempt to offer smart, connected devices.

Regardless of the solution domains and their location and size, it’s very likely that they will look to adopt this successful model in order to have the best chance of making money in the IoT consumer world.

IoT Now: There are numerous potential players poised to participate in such a model. Who are they?

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YM: In the world of selling worldwide services and content, there’s a need for a complete solution to enable a superb endto-end consumer experience. The situation is even more challenging when we

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INTERVIEW

The key elements remain the same. For every single consumer IoT service out there, there are many players involved and that’s what makes it so difficult to provide a seamless consumer experience

talk about consumer IoT that has a much more complex value structure. We’re not even talking about a value chain anymore, but rather about a value grid.

The key elements remain the same. For every single consumer IoT service out there, there are many players involved and that’s what makes it so difficult to provide a seamless consumer experience. Application developers, IoT service providers, technology enablers, connectivity providers, content providers, OEMs, store owners, and local distributors and channels are only some of the key players involved in providing a consumer IoT service.

When you put them, and the potential relationships that can be developed among them all together, you have this value grid.

IoT Now: The industry faces numerous challenges in the creation and offering of these models. What are some of them?

YM: OEMs face so many challenges and obstacles as they continue to transform themselves from solely being providers of smart connected devices to providers of digital services running on top of those devices.

YM: The largest OEMs, which also tend to have a clear IoT vision, may try to overcome some of these challenges by relying on their deep pockets, global distribution and brand recognition. But it’s almost impossible for small start-ups to succeed in the process of creation, execution, sale and management of global services when they have no local presence, no experience as a service provider, no exposure to consumers, and limited resources to integrate with all the other players in the value grid and to run global operations on a large scale.

But even the largest OEMs, from the car and consumer electronics industries for example, are asking for help in areas outside of their core business domains. Making the switch in both mindset and operations, and moving from the comfort zone of being device manufacturers to becoming worldwide service providers, is equally difficult for both small and large OEMs. IoT Now: Customer experience is a key factor in the success of the consumer IoT trend. How important is it and why?

We coined the term servitisation to describe this trend. It’s our belief that these challenges start from the investment phase and OEMs need to build solutions which incorporate a combination of device and services, an SDK (software development kit) for third party developers, an application store, CRM (customer relationship management) and a lot of IT infrastructure.

YM: Today’s consumer attention span can be summarised using the term “tl:dr” (too long, didn’t read it). It all begins and ends with the customer experience, and success in consumer IoT requires delivering a seamless experience. Consumers want to find services fast, buy them fast and start using their connected devices immediately. You have to offer an integrated solution and customers need to be able to own their experience in no more than a few clicks.

Then the next step is to establish an ecosystem of business partners who will help them push the solution to the market. But it doesn’t end there. The selling phase presents numerous challenges to OEMs, like global outreach for device activation and connectivity, collecting payment methods and guaranteeing a simple consumer experience.

Consumers simply want to compare and select IoT connected device service providers, buy the device, service and required connectivity, and subsequently pay for the services and the connectivity using their existing payment method. And they want to activate it in just a few clicks and do all this using a single store.

The post-sale and service period following the sale brings to the table even more challenges, like consumer billing and support, as well as settlement between the players in the value grid.

IoT Now: What can be done to help the industry in accelerating the adoption of consumer IoT?

IoT Now: Large enterprises and small startups are vastly different when it comes to implementing consumer IoT services. What are some of the primary differences?

YM: While OEMs are struggling to embark on the servitisation journey and search for suitable partners to help them on their journey, local service providers are also trying to find their way into the world of IoT. Some have gravitated towards opportunities providing connectivity for the consumer segment but there’s growing recognition that cellular connectivity is not going to be the defining factor in the communication service providers’ revenues from IoT. ▼

The various business processes like registration, activation and charging, which aren’t integrated, already present another challenge resulting in the inability to monetise current and future consumer services.

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The capabilities that make up the Amdocs IoT Platform

Analysts predict that mobile connectivity will account for only about 10% of the global IoT connectivity market by 2020, so communication service providers need to seek out other IoT revenue sources. We’re already seeing some evidence of change like the development of a full solution for specific consumer IoT domains.

The reference here is to both communication service providers as well as any other domestic service providers like utilities, security, health and others, which have a lot of value to offer to the OEM. This value might include a local presence with a strong brand, customer base, stores and being compliant to local regulations.

I believe that the opportunity for cooperation between service providers, OEMs and other players in the value grid is immense. It’s just a matter of every player bringing their own assets to enjoy the value created out of the joint IoT solution.

Not only does IoT create the ideal platform for different players to come together to pool resources and create solutions, but the added value for OEMs who partner with service providers is massive. In using several service provider strategic strengths, IoT relies on ubiquitous connectivity across wide geographic areas, taking advantage of existing service provider network footprints.

OEMs are on fertile ground to get on board because service providers already have extensive networks of channel and technology partners that can help them meet IoT challenges. In that respect, the industry has already laid the groundwork.

IoT Now: How can Amdocs help make this a reality?

YM: The challenge the market needs to solve is what I like to call a many to many to many situation – many OEMs to many content and service developers to many local service

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providers. We believe there’s a need for a technology and services platform that will enable the different players to meet, cooperate in creating solutions, and use all the available resources to deliver an end-toend experience around consumer IoT services.

The real win-win for both service providers and OEMs is when consumers can find devices and service offerings quickly within this IoT technology experience-focused platform, regardless of their connectivity provider.

Amdocs, as a trusted, independent and nonbiased vendor, has the knowledge, experience and innovative drive to create, manage and offer this platform to every player in the consumer IoT value grid. Such an IoT platform will serve as a single integration point and a matchmaker between service providers, OEMs and enablers, offering consumers visibility to relevant devices and services.

Analysts predict that mobile connectivity will account for only about 10% of the global IoT connectivity market by 2020, so communication service providers need to seek out other IoT revenue sources

The platform supports all the business processes which enable a one click experience for consumers, including, for example, opening an account within the different OEM stores, SIM and connectivity assignment and service purchase. The bottom line of what this platform offers is the ability for everyone to benefit, especially the consumers.

Relying on our close relationships with more than 300 service provider customers and the fact that we help to monetise billions of end consumers, Amdocs is best positioned to enable service providers to utilise their numerous assets and partner with the OEM to drive this mega business for them.

In cooperation with our partners, we can use our expertise as global service and experience providers to connect the dots to enable endto-end consumer services, and manage the reconciliation in the value grid, using new business models and providing exciting experiences to consumers all over the world.

www.amdocs.com

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INTERVIEW

Capitalising on the Industrial Internet of Things requires new business models and processes Global players in many industries such as telecommunications, medical, industrial and manufacturing, and transportation are changing their business models to create new offerings and to capture their share of the trillion dollar Internet of Things (IoT) market. This is not an easy task; it means fundamental change to operations, sales and marketing, product management and operations as well as a redefinition of pricing and go-to-market strategy.

Here, Eric Free, the senior vice president for strategic growth at Flexera Software, discusses the four business process areas that are key to monetising the IoT – licensing and security, entitlement management, delivery and updates, and in-product analytics

Eric Free: There are tremendous opportunities for manufacturers to create new revenue models and establish new and recurring revenue streams

Eric Free: The general IoT numbers are quite staggering and will require a transformational shift as companies evolve from a traditional hardware product mindset to an Internet of Things solution mindset. Manufacturers of all sizes, from startups to conglomerates, must have monetisation strategies in place to capture value at all stages of this transformation.

We're seeing an emerging class of intelligent device – hardware – manufacturers that are going through a business transformation that encompasses business model and core

business operations changes. Every discussion about this change involves software – either embedded on devices or connected to them to deliver additional services, often involving data analysis and business intelligence. This puts software at the very heart of any Industrial IoT (IIoT) solution. As a result, the initial hardware sale will cease to be the main source of revenue and software monetisation models will have to be put in place to add value through software and services. This includes subscription revenue as well as additional application functionality sales.

In addition, in the IIoT world, manufacturers can unlock operational and manufacturing efficiencies by using software to differentiate and build exactly the right solutions, rather than building different hardware products or product lines. The reality is that all of this is for nothing if the manufacturer does not take into consideration the customer experience and deliver on customer expectations. In this new

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IoT Now: We’ve all seen the predictions from Gartner, IDC and many other analysts on the expected size of the commercial – as opposed to consumer – IoT market but the question is, regardless of all the hype, how are businesses actually going to make money or better yet save money with IoT and improve processes and customer experience while doing it?

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IIoT paradigm, knowing and understanding how customers use and consume products is paramount to customer success.

IoT Now: Are there specific examples you have seen in the commercial, consumer and industrial IoT markets?

EF: We’ve worked with many manufacturers across a broad range of industries that had very different business models and requirements. A few use cases that come to mind include: • A medical manufacturer that needed to meter how many times a doctor is allowed to use a MRI scanner and store images in the cloud so that data could be easily shared with authorised parties • An audio producer that needed to enable customers to download apps from their app store, as well as update features on the device and then store that media in the cloud to capture buying patterns • An industrial cleaning device manufacturer that wanted to sell the whole product as a service and charge it per square meters cleaned – including maintenance and service processes, functionality updates and usage analysis • A networking manufacturer that used a gateway model where all the end devices needed to send usage and profile data to a common gateway and the application running on the gateway controlled the behaviours of the end devices All of these examples have a common theme – and that is making hardware more intelligent by using software, so a key consideration is to architect IP with technology that enables manufacturers to protect and monetise in a variety of ways as well as understand how, when and where products are being used so that manufacturers can profit from the IIoT through innovation and predictive analytics.

IoT Now: So, for a manufacturer making that shift from hardware to software and IoT, what processes or systems need to be considered and implemented to support this?

EF: First of all, manufacturers need to ensure that business operations are aligned with strategic objectives. Running a software and IoT business is very different from running a hardware business. Ensuring systems and processes are in place to support a digital supply chain and manage hardware, software and IoT offerings requires a hybrid approach.

Software monetisation is a critical requirement for implementing and managing a digital business and supply chain. It includes four business processes areas that manufacturers need to consider as they shift to IoT: 1. Licensing and Security which enables manufacturers to implement business

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models by defining how products are packaged, sold, monetised and protected against overuse and tampering.

2. Entitlement Management which enables manufacturers to track usage rights, such as which customers have access to which products, to manage the licence lifecycle, to uncover cross-sell and upsell opportunities, to manage maintenance and renewal processes and to provide anytime, anywhere access and visibility into entitlements.

3. Delivery and Updates which enables manufacturers to automate the process to deliver both the initial software and subsequent product software and firmware updates, such as security patches, seamlessly and transparently to entitled customers.

The shift to hardware plus software has and will continue to transform IoT business models and provide great opportunities for those that take this path

4. Telemetry and In-Product Analytics which provides manufacturers with intelligence about how products are being used so that they can improve customer service and make better, smarter product decisions.

IoT Now: From your experience, what advice can you share with executives that are responsible for this shift from physical to digital solutions?

EF: The shift to hardware plus software has and will continue to transform IoT business models and provide great opportunities for those that take this path. Nevertheless, it is a big change. We encourage manufacturers to build a plan, create a vision and get executive alignment. We recommend by starting with a manageable project, like a single product or product line. We like to say: “Think big, start small, act quickly”.

For example, implementing an entitlement management platform can be complex but is absolutely essential for running a successful software business. Often hardware manufacturers don’t realise how unique managing software and the licence lifecycle processes are or the number of departments it will impact. So it is very important to get executive and department alignment before starting any project.

There are tremendous opportunities for manufacturers to create new usage-, valueand outcome-based revenue models to establish new and recurring revenue streams.

At the same time, this is a huge change to financial processes like cashflow and revenue recognition. To that end, finance should be involved in these projects early on to make sure that this change gets managed accordingly.

It’s an exciting time and manufacturers that make the transformation and adopt a software monetisation platform will be will poised to capture their share of the IoT market.

www.flexerasoftware.com/swm

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REPORT PREVIEW

Monetisation capabilities open up a profitable world of large-scale IoT offerings As businesses in all corners of the world grapple with the Fourth Industrial Revolution and digital transformation, it is clear IoT is and will continue to play a fundamental role. A new report, written by IoT Now and supported by Flexera Software, explores IoT business model and monetisation challenges and is previewed here

Traditional hardware manufacturers that are looking to become IoT providers and offer hardware, software, connectivity and services to enterprise organisations will be presented with a series of monetisation challenges.

There is much to consider and several different business models and approaches are emerging to take organisations from trial projects into the profitable world of largescale IoT offerings.

The potential for the IoT market is enormous.

IDCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vernon Turner predicts that, by 2025, approximately 80 billion devices will be connected to the internet. Today about 11 billion devices connect to the internet, and IDC predicts that will nearly triple to 30 billion

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by 2020 and then nearly triple again to 80 billion devices five years later.

Research firm Machina Research has projected that, between 2014 and 2024, there will be a total of US$1.3 trillion in IoT revenue that is available to companies that have sophisticated monetisation capabilities â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a significant part of the total anticipated revenue opportunity of $4.3 trillion.

Global management consultancy McKinsey & Company estimates the wider IoT to generate between $4 trillion and $11 trillion by 2025.

However, in spite of the glowing prospects, there may be a disconnect between the expectation and the reality. In a recent survey, Cap Gemini Consulting uncovered that while 96% of business leaders globally said their companies would be using IoT in some way by 2017, 70% of organisations do not generate service revenues from their IoT solutions.

Why are traditional device manufacturers transitioning to IoT offerings?

Overall, the consensus among most analysts is that IoT will be the new norm. IoT is increasingly cited by management as critical

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Many industries, including telecommunications, medical, manufacturing, retail and transportation are undertaking IoT initiatives to capture their share of the trillion dollar IoT market. Some IoT deployments are moving beyond initial trials to implementation and some are just getting started. The challenge now, is how manufacturers can generate revenue from these IoT initiatives.

Revenue in this case encompasses efficiency gains, cost savings and net new IoT profits.

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to the future success of their organisation. For many traditional manufacturers, this means becoming a software and services provider to support their IoT offering. Here’s a few reasons why manufacturers are making the leap: • Grow profits by driving topline growth and recurring revenue streams – to survive in this fast paced and emerging IoT world, manufacturers need to rethink and transform their business models to create new IoT offerings through product innovation and differentiation via software, services and data. The value is no longer in the device but in the software, services and data and manufacturers that capitalise on this by offering and monetising service models can build recurring revenue streams through subscription models as well as usage or outcome-based business models.

• Streamline manufacturing costs and operational efficiencies – in today’s highly competitive market, devices are commoditised and manufacturers are seeking ways to reduce manufacturing costs and simplify hardware production processes. Many manufacturers are adopting technology to electronically control and provision device capability and capacity while at the same time implementing remote device monitoring to streamline support and service processes.

This is a baseline for success for IoT solution providers.

• Capture usage – In this use case a highend medical device manufacturer wanted to secure per procedure revenue and utilised metered, pay-per-use or overdraft models, to capture more revenue and make it more affordable to address variable market needs.

• Deepen relationship with customers and deliver an excellent customer experience – with software and services playing a major role in IoT offerings the requirements regarding customer experience change completely. Manufacturers, channel partners and customers alike need complete visibility into what each customer owns and is entitled to in terms of upgrades, maintenance and services – through multiple tiers of distribution.

• Improve competitive position – A manufacturer that makes sensors, valves and software to monitor, track and manage the flow of oil and gas pipes started to monetise value-added software via a usage-based model. This enabled pricing flexibility during turbulent times – such as when oil prices are depressed - by aligning value to revenue model and enabling customer organisations to adopt pay-asyou-go/grow. They also monetised on optimisation, fault detection and operator training system usage runs thereby enhancing customer lifetime value.

New IoT business and monetisation model use cases The IoT offers opportunities across many industries. Some interesting use cases include: • Anything-as-a-service – In this scenario, the producer started to monetise embedded and server software across an entire public safety value chain from radios and cameras to video processing and jail management. In this IoT model, the solution is delivered as a service model and priced per public safety officer per year.

• Expand value with an ecosystem approach – In this scenario, a casino expanded its value within a broader ecosystem and maximised revenue per patron with software-driven gaming machines integrated with casino management software and digital signage.

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Figure 1: Example for Anything-as-a-Service model

• Monetise connected and managed devices – This example involves a medical device manufacturer that embedded software in medical infusion pumps and monetised it based on connection to EMR/ EHR systems and management software.

• Reduce manufactured device variants to one – An electronic test and measurement device manufacturer configured devices with software in order to lower manufacturing and inventory costs, turn features on and off for targeted solutions and enable field upgradeable devices.

The full report contains further discussion of new models for IoT monetisation and explores the key questions manufacturers should ask as they transition to IoT offerings.

It also features guidance on transitioning from hardware to software plus services and IoT offerings, examines some of the security issues facing enterprises and shares further market indicators. The report, in its entirety can be downloaded free at www.monetizingtheiot.com

in today’s highly competitive market, devices are commoditised and manufacturers are seeking ways to reduce manufacturing costs and simplify hardware production processes

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INTERVIEW

IoT monetisation means enabling enterprises to offer everything as a service Mohsen Mohseninia is vice president of market development for Europe at Aeris.

With more than 18 years of experience in the telecoms sector and an early pioneer of the machine-to-machine market, Mohseninia joined Aeris in 2013. Prior to that he was head of M2M for Logica in the UK, having worked for the company in Europe, the Middle East and Africa developing Logica’s global Operational Support Systems business targeting telecom businesses. Here, he tells George Malim that, as organisations move from pilots and trials into larger scale deployments, monetisation of the IoT is being given far greater attention. That attention, critically must cut across the entire business and engage all stakeholders because, as Mohseninia emphasises, IoT monetisation means complete business transformation that will turn traditional business models on their head, turning products into services. Early cost saving projects are a red herring; the real IoT deal is IoT transformation

Mohsen Mohseninia: Most organisations that have looked at a business case for their IoT have typically focused on a business case that has the shortest path to enabling them to save money. They’ve looked at IoT solutions to automate processes such as local authorities emptying bins. With sensors to communicate when a bin is full, the authority only needs to send out a truck to collect the rubbish when the bin is full, thereby saving the cost of trucks driving round checking whether bins need emptying.

This has been the easiest path to IoT monetisation because it saves money.

However, the real value of IoT to organisations is in the way it fundamentally changes their interaction with customers. The disruption it can have to their business model in terms of moving from a capital expenditure (capex) model to one that is much more based on a recurring operational expenditure (opex) model is at the heart of this.

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I’m talking about IoT users harnessing the power of IoT to transform their businesses so they sell their products and services as a service rather than in the traditional model.

Why can’t you sell usage of a car based on the mileage the customer drives rather than requiring them to pay €30,000 just to have a car?

The real power of IoT is in enabling this type of new model, where the greater portion of monetisation will take place, rather than in scenarios where automation can achieve cost savings. In the traditional way of doing business – selling unconnected products – the enterprise was focused on the features and benefits of their products whilst in the connected services world they will be more focused on the utilisation of their products as well as their customer expereince. This is where they will generate the most revenue from their products. In essence their products will become the strategic assets of their organisation where maximum utilisation will be essential for their success.

However, for that to happen and companies to have that business model transformation

Mohsen Mohseninia: The real value of IoT to organisations is in the way it fundamentally changes their interaction with customers

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IoT Now: How can organisations gain the flexibility to offer multiple services over their IoT infrastructure, thereby enabling multiple revenue streams?

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they need certain capabilities at their disposal so they can use the power of IoT across the whole business rather than only in specific departments. IoT needs to deliver value to marketing departments in terms of brand recognition, for example. It also needs to provide value to financing by providing a different way to monetise the assets of the business. IoT is not for one department, it is for all departments.

IoT Now: What are the advantages of using a single provider to control the entire service chain? Why is this better than using several providers?

MM: In order to deliver an IoT solution effectively there are many components that need to come together. You need a device that transmits data using some sort of transport mechanism such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi, narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) or cellular connectivity. A device that transmits a set of data on a regular basis to a data ingestion system to generate immediate insights as well as longerterm analysis to be performed. The data must be stored securely, visualised and presented and then decisions need to be made through the decision-making machines, systems and processes within an organisation. Typically all these components are supplied by different suppliers with independent product lifecycles.

As you can see, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a really fragmented landscape and organisations have tried to create an integrated capability themselves have found it extremely challenging to bring together a specific device, software, connectivity, data storage and analytics capabilities. The challenge is long and complex with lots of opportunities for things to go wrong.

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IoT in essence is a collection of bits so we think the more of the components and the capabilities that can be supplied as a shrink wrapped offering, the easier it will be for companies to manage risk and the easier and faster it will be for

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It’s fundamental to be able to support your customers’ business model fully, not just in words. The only way we succeed is if our customers succeed. That’s fundamental to the opex model

It’s important to recognise that these capabilities are not the core business of IoT users so their energies are better spent directed at developing new offerings, products and services which make use of IoT rather than trying to build IoT capabilities themselves. I’m talking to insurance companies who want a deeper understanding of how IoT can change the way they interact with their customers and provide insurance not as an evil people must have but as a service people want to have.

These insurers don’t care about the how of the capability, just that it exists. They are thinking about potentially outsourcing the whole infrastructure including the devices and the logistics to a third party that is expert and just benefiting from the data and the analytics to transfer their business from product centric to customer centric.

Always in industry as a whole there is the question of whether to go for best of breed technological solutions or to take a holistic approach. My view is that if you get something at 20% of the risk that provides 80% of the desired solution it beats something at 80% of the risk with 120% of the solution. It’s about getting to the end goals with minimal risk.

IoT Now: How can suppliers create confidence in customer organisations that they won't be charged for functionality they're not using? How might this work in seasonal industries?

MM: I think it is vital for the charges to be transparent. The whole shift IoT brings is a move from capex to opex with everything as a service. If you’re operating in that paradigm having a fixed cost that you’re not generating revenue from would be a fatal model.

We have customers in the combine harvester market; it’s a precision agriculture business.

Supplement IoT Now - September / October 2016

They only operate from April to October so, while we could say that’s your problem, here’s an annual fee for using the services, we understand the model is seasonal and we’ve built our billing model to cater for that. We charge them only when they make money.

Parked harvesters don’t make money so when they’re not working, they’re not being charged.

It’s fundamental to be able to support your customers’ business model fully, not just in words. The only way we succeed is if our customers succeed. That’s fundamental to the opex model.

IoT Now: What are the challenges involved in educating the market place to look beyond IoT capabilities as a commodity and look to the value IoT platforms can generate?

MM: The biggest challenge is to create consensus across organisations and across enterprises. That has to bring in all the chief stakeholders because it does impact them all.

You need the entire organisation engaged to support that transformation and I believe that is starting to happen. For instance, the emergence of chief digital officers and chief IoT officers is demonstrating that IoT is going up the management chain and becoming a board level issue.

It will take time because enterprises have operated with the same business model for the last 50 years and that won’t change overnight. However, as more adopt IoT, the pace of change will accelerate. The current challenge remains creating consensus within enterprises.

IoT Now: How does Aeris add value to basic IoT capabilities by bringing in additional capabilities such as analytics?

MM: We see our role as being the partner that can help enterprises on the journey from being businesses that provide unconnected products to ones that provide connected services.

Our technology helps them fundamentally transform their business models and the customer experiences they deliver. ▼

them to deploy services. It won’t be a single supplier scenario though, that’s a utopia, but, by using a smaller number of suppliers to support more of the IoT functionality the situation will be simplified.

S17

INTERVIEW

Our focus is how to take more out of the asset, whether it’s a truck or a probe, and make its data readily available across various enterprise processes

We’ve had more than 20 years of delivering M2M/IoT from its infancy. We were one of the pioneers and we’ve learned a lot about how customers want to consume these services and the challenges that it creates which extend across the organisation. Based on that we’ve focused on enabling all our capabilities within our IoT platform. This can be accessed holistically by customers or in a modular way so they can take the pieces they need.

We have a platform centric approach to enable a decision centric approach. Lots of platforms are based on an asset in the centre, such as a connectivity module or a device.

Our focus is how to take more out of the asset, whether it’s a truck or a probe, and make its data readily available across various enterprise processes.

The value lies in allowing information from the asset to go across the enterprise and be shared. That’s where our focus is and what we’re interested in.

Achieving this requires certain capabilities we’ve built within our platform such as rating, access management, maintenance, routing, alerting, security, integration and location. We are continuing to enhance the platform by adding more capabilities as we move forward.

This is all about transforming the businesses of our customers and these are essential capabilities that can be consumed either holistically or customers can select pieces they need from different suppliers.

We’ve focused on investing where we believe customers will need capabilities to enable them to move from an asset-centric approach to a decision-centric one that goes across the entire corporation.

IoT Now: What do you see as the major ways in which IoT monetisation will mature in the next 12-24 months?

www.aeris.com

MM: One thing that is clear is that the future of IoT as a whole and its monetisation will be highly dependent on policy makers and the

role they will play in the ownership of data.

Whether you’re a consumer of data or a manufacturer of assets makes a fundamental difference.

For example with usage based insurance, if you have a black box that transmits data about your driving is the data yours or the insurance company’s? Or, if the box was fitted by the car maker, is it theirs? Such questions are compounded regarding whether, if the data is yours, you can take it to another insurance company. In addition, if cars become service items the car maker may take your driving data and provide insurance as part of its per mile fee for your vehicle usage.

I can see two potential outcomes. Policy makers will say that the driver is the owner or they will say the owner is the insurance company or the car manufacturer. Either model will require different infrastructure and based on that, different monetisation will be needed.

Added to this is the emergence of personal cloud initiatives which see the data generated from various assets going to your personal cloud and you giving access to your personal data when you buy services from providers.

Given the above uncertainty, I see two key attributes an IoT supplier will need to have in order for the enterprise to be successful in deploying IoT solutions. These are agility and flexibility. This market is fast moving and enterprises will be looking for agile IoT suppliers that inherently have agility built-in to their products. Supplier inability to enable enterprises to react to market forces will slow some down and they will lose first mover advantage. We have the flexibility to support customers’ business models, regardless of what they are.

This is a dynamic and fluid field at the moment and we want to work out what it’s going to look like in 24 months. There are lot of challenges to look at and a lot of decisions that need to be made based on the likelihood of the outcomes.

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Supplement IoT Now - September / October 2016

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