Internet of Things: vital driver for fibre

TECHNOLOGY

The Internet of Things connects machine-to-machine (M2M), machine-to-person (M2P) and person-to-person (P2P) communications. However, allowing everything to speak with everything requires network capacity only fibre optics can deliver...

Ronan Kelly

PRESIDENT, FTTH COUNCIL EUROPE

Connected ‘Things’ might include household appliances, healthcare instruments, (mobile or wearable) computers, vehicles, grid-feeding solar and wind powered electricity generators, and tracking devices. Ericsson estimates 50 billion Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. IT, telecom and consumer technology analyst IDC has predicted that by then, some 212 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. Gartner has predicted that $26 billion worth of IoT devices will be installed by then, generating $300 billion in revenue. A typical family home could have as many as 500 networked devices by 2022. Cisco believes consumers will use four times as much data as businesses by 2019.

The rapidly growing number of devices and generated data volume represents a significant challenge to the underlying communications networks. Although many of the connected ‘Things’ generally require little bandwidth, some will often need to stream large volumes of data – such as HD video – in real time, making bandwidth and low latency very important.

Latency, bandwidth and flexibility

“IoT is a huge driver for fibre uptake,” says FTTH Council Europe president Ronan Kelly. “Although people might immediately link IoT to specific household or industrial uses, we need to understand that in the future new, increasingly sophisticated applications will arise. These shouldn’t be hampered by insufficient connection speed or latency. IoT applications are generally based on an item of hardware, such as a smart thermostat, and a software component. Increasingly that software component is resident in the cloud. Without very fast connectivity between sensor and software, the application will be underwhelming. That not only means less enthusiasm on the part of the end-user, and less uptake, it can also mean malfunction of critical infrastructures if centralized automated decision making is hampered by delayed sensor data delivery.”

“Taking a piecemeal approach to fibre rollout won’t give the best results - it’s vital to roll out on a large scale. Even though a huge portion of the data will be sent and received over 5G and WiFi, there has to be sufficient fibre backhaul. Consider ‘Smart City’ traffic management. If certain traffic lights and sensors are connected to fibre, and others are connected to legacy broadband, the underlying intelligence will find it exceedingly difficult to make decisions as certain vital information consistently arrives late. That leads to sub-optimal decision-making, and, again, poor user experience.”

Low latency, bandwidth and flexibility

“Ultrafast fibre enables all kinds of applications we’re seeing today, which simply wouldn’t be possible with previous generations of broadband network technology. Companies developing novel applications can’t build successful business models if there’s no underlying system to support their offerings. However, developers always seem to be one step ahead of currently available connection speeds – and if those speeds don’t become available, manufacturers and end-users can’t release or adopt useful new technologies, potentially stifling future innovation. Unfortunately, operators are often happy to keep using their existing network assets and investors don’t always receive the security they need to convince them to invest in long-term fibre projects. The EU aims to remain ‘technology neutral’ when it comes to subsidies, but in many cases, fibre is simply the most appropriate solution, with other technologies possibly in a supporting role. In countries such as Spain, France and Luxemburg, the government has been driving change by intervening at regulatory level or funding level, helping them take the first step towards the Gigabit society.” The FTTH Council Europe strongly believes that governments have a significant role to play in catalysing the advancement of Europe towards becoming a gigabit society.

FIBRE: PREREQUISITE FOR THE SUCCESS INTERNET OF THINGS

At the most recent CES global consumer electronics and technology trade show in Las Vegas, an expert panel claimed fibre broadband is a prerequisite for the success of IoT. Katie Espeseth, VP new products for the Electronic Power Board in Chattanooga, Tennessee, explained how the country’s first Gb/s municipal broadband network was built to support an IoT application. Kevin Morgan, director of cloud and services marketing at ADTRAN stated that fibre is necessary to support high bandwidth applications such as multiple UHD video streams. Panellist Kyle Holyfield, senior vice president at Magellan Advisors, suggested rolling out fibre to prepare residential networks for increased data traffic.

Connected ‘Things’ might include household appliances, healthcare instruments, (mobile or wearable) computers, vehicles, grid-feeding solar and wind powered electricity generators, and tracking devices. Ericsson estimates 50 billion Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. IT, telecom and consumer technology analyst IDC has predicted that by then, some 212 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. Gartner has predicted that $26 billion worth of IoT devices will be installed by then, generating $300 billion in revenue. A typical family home could have as many as 500 networked devices by 2022. Cisco believes consumers will use four times as much data as businesses by 2019.

The rapidly growing number of devices and generated data volume represents a significant challenge to the underlying communications networks. Although many of the connected ‘Things’ generally require little bandwidth, some will often need to stream large volumes of data – such as HD video – in real time, making bandwidth and low latency very important.

Latency, bandwidth and flexibility

“IoT is a huge driver for fibre uptake,” says FTTH Council Europe president Ronan Kelly. “Although people might immediately link IoT to specific household or industrial uses, we need to understand that in the future new, increasingly sophisticated applications will arise. These shouldn’t be hampered by insufficient connection speed or latency. IoT applications are generally based on an item of hardware, such as a smart thermostat, and a software component. Increasingly that software component is resident in the cloud. Without very fast connectivity between sensor and software, the application will be underwhelming. That not only means less enthusiasm on the part of the end-user, and less uptake, it can also mean malfunction of critical infrastructures if centralized automated decision making is hampered by delayed sensor data delivery.”

“Taking a piecemeal approach to fibre rollout won’t give the best results - it’s vital to roll out on a large scale. Even though a huge portion of the data will be sent and received over 5G and WiFi, there has to be sufficient fibre backhaul. Consider ‘Smart City’ traffic management. If certain traffic lights and sensors are connected to fibre, and others are connected to legacy broadband, the underlying intelligence will find it exceedingly difficult to make decisions as certain vital information consistently arrives late. That leads to sub-optimal decision-making, and, again, poor user experience.”

Low latency, bandwidth and flexibility

“Ultrafast fibre enables all kinds of applications we’re seeing today, which simply wouldn’t be possible with previous generations of broadband network technology. Companies developing novel applications can’t build successful business models if there’s no underlying system to support their offerings. However, developers always seem to be one step ahead of currently available connection speeds – and if those speeds don’t become available, manufacturers and end-users can’t release or adopt useful new technologies, potentially stifling future innovation. Unfortunately, operators are often happy to keep using their existing network assets and investors don’t always receive the security they need to convince them to invest in long-term fibre projects. The EU aims to remain ‘technology neutral’ when it comes to subsidies, but in many cases, fibre is simply the most appropriate solution, with other technologies possibly in a supporting role. In countries such as Spain, France and Luxemburg, the government has been driving change by intervening at regulatory level or funding level, helping them take the first step towards the Gigabit society.” The FTTH Council Europe strongly believes that governments have a significant role to play in catalysing the advancement of Europe towards becoming a gigabit society.