5G, Industry 5.0 and eSIM connectivitypivotal for IoT momentum

The report highlights why increased device connectivity is key to unlocking value and innovation in global IoT deployments. Additionally, it emphasises concerns around securing IoT and achieving real-time visibility of a business’s entire fleet estate. The report also explores IoT’s role in cross-sector adoption, and how eSIM will accelerate global IoT deployments in 2022 and beyond.

Other key findings include:

How to deploy the optimal combination of IoT and people to deliver transformational projects

Why the importance of robust device connectivity should not be underestimated

Unlocking the potential of cellular IoT for 5G and beyond

Improving IoT education on all sides: from developers to end-users and vendors

“Our Future of IoT Report reveals unique insights from prominent industry players throughout the IoT ecosystem. And that’s exactly what we are – a collective working together. The report highlights the need for collaboration between enterprises and their IoT partners, to achieve their 2022 ambitions,” comments Nick Earle, CEO at Eseye.

Unlocking the potential of IoT for 5G

Peter Doggart, Chief Strategy Officer at Armis, focuses on the importance of designing security into IoT systems from the outset. Doggart talks about the criticality of a proactive approach, in order to keep every device within a business’ IoT deployment safe and secure. With the number of IoT devices potentially running into the hundreds of thousands, and typically in remote locations, a security-first approach to design is a must.

“It’s vital that we educate device developers about the need to build in security from the ground up, to factor in the ability to patch, and to think from the perspective of DevOps all the way through to production operations. By helping them understand this, we stand a good chance of preventing the opening of potential floodgates for security hacks,” claims Doggart.

“Without reliable connectivity, businesses are operating in a blind spot, regardless of whether they use private or public networks,” remarks Eric Conn, CEO and Founder of IoT digital transformation organisation, Leverege. Mikael Persson, Chief Technology Officer at Sigma Connectivity, adds: “The hotly anticipated Release 17 of the 3GPP mobile broadband standard will outline more 5G system enhancements that will ease the current deployment challenges and help to ‘truly unlock the potential of IoT for 5G’.”

How IoT is evolving Industry 5.0

Leonard Lee, Managing Director and Founding Member of research and advisory consultancy, neXt Curve, points to IoT having the greatest impact in two sectors that continue to make headlines: Oil and Gas, and Healthcare. The latter’s impact on helping to deliver critical health and care services remotely during the pandemic has ensured that local authorities are able to triage patients more effectively, at a time when hospital capacity and resources have been stretched almost to breaking point.

Vernon Turner, Principal and Chief Strategist at IT market research firm, Causeway-Connections LLC, states that human expertise is essential to fully utilise the power of IoT in any industry. According to Turner, “By using IoT to gain insights into complex human behaviour, then feeding that back into human decisions, we can truly deliver new ways of working and new value.”

Industrial manufacturing is excellent example of how IoT sensor data can be fed into machine learning models, which can subsequently be turned into digital tools that educate workers on certain solutions.

“The next stage of IoT needs to move from ‘what can technology do?’ to ‘how can we combine technology and people to deliver real transformation?’ The promised transformation from sensors and robots introduced by Industry 4.0 hasn’t materialised. The real transformation will come when we recognise that these technologies must fit into and augment human systems. I am calling this ‘Industry 5.0’,” adds Turner.

How eSIM is enabling enterprises to take control

For IoT to achieve its desired levels of market disruption and value delivery for enterprises, it must move towards a device localisation approach. Switching from proprietary SIMs to an eSIM provides enterprises with additional freedom and control over parameters such as signal strength, device security and policy.

Ibrahim Gedeon, Chief Technology Officer at TELUS, stresses how eSIM is revolutionizing the IoT connectivity value chain, because it can be “embedded in any device and makes managing connectivity simple regardless of where it is in the world.”

Steffen Sorrell, Chief of Research at Kaleido Intelligence, outlines how this approach will circumnavigate the ongoing issue of IoT devices permanently roaming: “eSIM decouples the SIM from the operator so that network providers can be switched remotely over-the-air. This flexible framework enables companies to adapt to the local market that the device is deployed in and avoid the roaming model – known as localisation. This helps IoT devices to stay connected anywhere in the world, especially in those territories that have restricted permanent roaming in one way or another.”

Earle concludes: “Adopting the eSIM connectivity approach will be crucial in helping to realise the opportunities that our assembled experts have predicted above, helping to drive enormous opportunities for many in the IoT ecosystem. Without a doubt, 2022 will be a watershed year for IoT and one where enterprises finally take control.”