It is not news, but a recent Omdia survey suggests connectivity providers still primarily are viewed as having a trusted role as suppliers of internet of things connectivity, rather than platforms, service management or applications. In a nutshell, that is the “dumb pipe” role, where the connectivity provider’s role is the transport of packets over a wide area network.
What might surprise you is that about 28 percent of survey respondents cite other participants in the ecosystem as trusted suppliers of the IoT connectivity function. Those trusted providers include system integrators, software suppliers and IoT specialist firms.
That is not as surprising as it might seem, as 5G and 4G mobile platforms now include support for private 5G networks, built using unlicensed, shared or reserved licensed spectrum. If use of licensed or unlicensed spectrum no longer is a barrier to creating a private premises network, as was the case for Wi-Fi, then it makes sense that IoT networks also can be envisioned much as local area networks are: using unlicensed, shared or licensed LAN assets to create private local networks.
The big difference is that private IoT networks might use local computing support--on the premises or within 10 kilometers in some cases, up to 100 kim in other cases--instead of backhauling traffic over the wide area network to remote data centers.
None of that means enterprises running private 5G will dispense entirely with WAN connectivity. That would be necessary for other reasons. But it is likely that local IoT computing will do much processing locally, with WAN connections required for reporting and long-term storage, at the very least.
The larger point is that IoT, like any other important use case, might often have connectivity providers largely viewed as suppliers of WAN connectivity, rather than platforms or apps, which is where most of the revenue and profit are likely to be created.
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