By iPass Staff Writer
It’s a bold statement, I know; but well, I’m a bold guy! Give me a minute and I think you’ll follow how exactly Wi-Fi is perfectly positioned to be the future of networking.
So ask yourself – what does a world look like with 50 billion connected devices? That’s “B” for billion. Those are exactly the early projections of the Internet of Things (IoT,) 25 billion devices will come online by 2015 with 50 billion by 2020. Those numbers break down to 6.58 devices per person for every person in the world. And those are very conservative estimates according to Cisco IBSG’s IoT report earlier this year. In other words, we’re on the verge of the next major information revolution.
But what’s going to support all of these connected “things”; ‘til now it’s been cellular networks and providers. But we have to ask ourselves a couple of things:
- Cellular is expensive; and as more and more “things” come online, is it worth connecting them over cellular? Unequivocally, no! Simply put, the cost, coverage, and bandwidth challenges of mobile cellular mean that Wi-Fi will be the key connectivity technology for home, business, and public IoT deployments.
- Are all IoT devices created equal? Again, the answer is no. In fact, New York City is in the midst of launching Wi-Fi for trash bins. The waste management company Bigbelly has applied for a New York mayoral grant to use solar power to turn the city’s trash cans into connected smart bins with sensors that now tell passing trucks when they’re 85 % full. It’s all about efficiency, but trash collection isn’t like a heart monitor, something that needs to be on 100% of the time, feeding back data. When it comes to trash collection, it’s ok to use a Wi-Fi connection to relay information once a day or once every couple of days.
- How are cellular networks going to handle the mass proliferation of connected devices? They just aren’t! Now imagine a smart, best effort Wi-Fi solution that allows all these “things” to roam on and off a global Wi-Fi network. Wi-Fi will be an absolutely key access technology for IoT enablement.
The forces are there to move the world of networking to a real and reliable Wi-Fi sideloading solution. A Wi-Fi solution that complements cellular networks and empowers the next revolution in connectivity and Big Data!
Next time: Everywhere, Everything & Invisible or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Big Data