inno-vative business models. Today,
the vast majority of operator IoT
reven-ues come from connectivity,
but in the next five years, the revenue
will also come from service enable-
ment platforms, apps, and services.”
Carter agrees, saying, “When all is
said and done 5G could well become
the IoT’s best friend. It works well with
low-powered IoT devices, it provides
high data transfer rates when needed
and it can be sliced to manage specific
IoT applications. It’s also becoming the
new network norm, and it’s poised to be
more ubiquitous than current wireless
mobile networks.”FUTURE FOCUS
Such a confluence of emerging tech-
nologies looks set to transform far more
than commercial markets. Manufacturing
and the data centre industry is already
benefiting from the edge and 5G technol-
ogy in some regions. These innovations
have exceeded expectations in creating
greater energy efficiency, reducing car-
bon emissions, managing maintenance
systems, improving production and en-
hancing connectivity.
Carter adds that low energy dev-
ices will be a leading trend in the
5G IoT marketplace. “It comes down
to a trade-off between power and
data transfer capabilities,” he says.
“Devices generally need to be as
low-power and self-sustaining as
possible while still having sufficient
capacity and capability to transmit
and receive the volume and type of
data necessary for the product or
service to be effective.”47technologymagazine.com