MWC16 was a great venue to check the pulse of developments in IoT connectivity. We summarized part of our observations which we shared and published (link). It caused many follow ups by colleagues and friends who voiced a wide range of opinions that I thought some further color would be useful.
To start, the main challenge in IoT is applications. The challenge is not technology which exists. Rather, the issue is in making the business case for IoT to arrive at a functional solution. That cycle is long and expensive. When we drill deeper into many IoT activities, the question becomes “who will pay for this service.” Technology can lower the cost, but there are many elements that are not technology related which gate the process. Continue reading
The 2016 edition of MWC had two key themes: 5G and IoT. Both themes are positioned as potential revenue drivers for MNOs, but they are diametrically opposed propositions. These themes enforce the status of the MNOs as connectivity providers. Connectivity is a (necessary) commodity; 5G and IoT will take time to unfold as bounded by the requirements of investments and market development. But behind the limelight, the Internet giants and OTTs continue to lead the evolution towards network virtualization, while leveraging their inherent cloud and big data advantages, and as such, driving towards major market disruption. New business models are now possible that may render the MNOs to spectrum holders as service delivery is achieved through multiple channels with the cellular network being one of many such channels. 
Smart home startups took $454 million in investor funding in 2014, an increase of 57% over 2013
The adoption of wireless technologies for connectivity has shaken up the home automation market unleashing a number of trends:
Home automation is an active market with many players approaching it from different angles:
The home automation market is undergoing a progressive transformation propelled by the proliferation of smartphones and tablets. In addition to cellular technologies, home automation devices integrate different local and personal area technologies to connect among peripherals. This led to a new phase of evolution in home automation systems where wireless technologies enable connectivity for monitoring and control from anywhere at any time. Home automation solutions have broken through the early-adopter market phase. Mass market adoption on the other hand is yet to materialize leaving a great potential ahead for the next phase of development in a very dynamic market that’s in the process of being defined. In this paper, we outline the main characteristics of the home automation market and expose trends are shaping the market, raising challenges, and creating new opportunities. 
The wide-area IoT connectivity battle which has been brewing for a couple of years is heating up. Early last month at CES, Ericsson announced the release of “
Standardization of 5G is split into two phases. The first phase, which is scheduled for 2H2018, will focus on a subset of use cases and features. The second phase which is scheduled for December 2019, will meet ITU2020 requirements for 5G technology. Phase 1 will also focus on sub 6 GHz bands although carriers in Asia are pushing to include millimeter wave bands. The question is whether phase 1 will matter at all? Would operators bother with an intermediate step towards 5G, or opt to deploy the mature version when it becomes available? 
IoT use case are fragmented with different requirements. To match these requirements, a number of IoT connectivity solutions are available including wide-area low-power (LPWA), cellular wireless technologies (EGPRS, UMTS, LTE of different varieties), and short range technologies adapted to cover wide areas through mesh networking (ZigBee, WirelessHART, etc.) or extension of point-to-multipoint technologies (e.g. 802.11ah/HaLow). Each of these technology spaces is crowded with options, so which will survive and which will die out? 
Is 5G an evolution or a revolution? In an 
Hundreds of millions of dollars have poured into the low-power wide-area (LPWA) IoT connectivity market over the past 2 years alone to kick start a fledgeling ecosystem of companies across a wide range of products and services. In the process of due diligence and research in this market that we undertook at Xona Partners, we find the following key drivers for investments: 
The 5G picture is getting clearer by the day. While there is still a lot of fuzziness that will take take time to crystallize the broad outline for 5G is now more clear. Below, is a summary of some of our findings on 5G. Needless to say, 5G developments will have significant ramifications especially as the capital expenses to build 5G networks will be greater than ever before. This should not be a surprise as despite the call to reduce the unit cost of data transport (i.e. $/bit), the overall network expenditures continue to rise. So, here is the broad outline for 5G: 
Mobile network operators love to compete on performance (a few forget they need to make money!). Throughput takes most attention as does coverage. Other parameters like latency has been gaining popularity as data consumption increases. Not many MNOs talk about the sites they operate, except in financial statements and annual reports. I wanted to see if the cell site count has any bearing on performance. Can anything be judged by it other than an indicator of capex and opex? 
Every once in a while a spectrum auction brings big and interesting surprises. The last example is the 900 MHz Thai auction concluded last week which raised close to THB152 billion ($4.2 billion) for the right to use two licenses of 2×10 MHz. This is over 6x the reserve price THB12.8 billion per license, and one of the most expensive in the world. To put this into another perspective, the auction of 1800 MHz spectrum concluded last month in mid November raised to total of THB80.8 billion ($2.25 billion) for two licenses of 2×15 MHz. That’s 2.8x lower than the 900 MHz band on per MHz-PoP basis. 
WRC15 concluded with new spectrum assigned for mobile services: