Mobile World Congress 2017: A Strategy Analytics preview
Andrew Brown of Strategy Analytics
Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017 will take place in Barcelona, Spain, between Monday 27th February and Thursday 2nd March, 2017. As the mobile industry prepares to descend on sunny Barcelona for the event, the Strategy Analytics IoT team has looked into its crystal ball to preview technologies and trends which we believe will emerge from the show.
5G
MWC is the perfect vehicle to spread the word concerning 5G. The evangelism will tout the potential of this next generation communications standard, which offers key features for IoT such as massive MTC (machine type communications) and V2V/V2X (vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to everything) potential.
Strategy Analytics believes that operators will need time to build up and achieve the ubiquitous coverage required by many IoT applications. 5G IoT, in fact, may not be available in the mass market until 2025 or later. What 5G addresses is the ability to handle the sheer volume of IoT devices, as well as the range of device requirements, says Andrew Brown of Strategy Analytics.
Narrowband IoT
Following commercial deployments in 2017, along with the launch of test networks in 2016, NB-IoT will receive coverage as a leading narrowband IoT technology. Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom have both planted their flags in the technology with European rollouts, with China Telecom and China Unicom also planning domestic rollouts in 2017.
However we expect that other narrowband IoT technologies will receive coverage at the show, such as LoRa and SIGFOX In each case we expect to hear about deployment numbers and how the particular standard is the most suitable LPWAN (low-power wide area network) for the market.
The variety of LPWAN standards discussion coming out of the operators will underline a key trend Strategy Analytics highlighted in our Top Internet of Things (IoT) Trends in 2017 report, that telecommunications choices are going to continue to remain confusing for companies looking to deploy IoT solutions.
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
We expect to see the full gamut of AI usage discussed and exhibited at MWC 2017, ranging from chat-bots and virtual assistants, through to analytics applications aiding in the processing of IoT data to gain insight. From Strategy Analytics own primary research, enterprises are struggling to keep up with the data coming from IoT devices, and process it efficiently, which can be seen as an open door for AI and ML.
Simply stated, if a company is struggling to process IoT data today, what will the situation be like in 5 or 10 years?
Security
Security is the issue that enterprises know they must get right, and that the consequences of getting wrong are serious.
We expect the recently announced Blockchain Consortium, with members including Cisco, Bosch, and Foxconn; will receive some attention during the event, as the consortium members look to work on securing IoT applications using Blockchain technology.
The exhibition floor
With substantial exhibition floor space, navigating around relevant areas at MWC can be a tough task. The Internet of Things Pavilion is a key location to visit with exhibitors of IoT technology and solutions, which the GSMA commented has doubled in size over 2016. The Internet of Things Pavilion can be found in the NEXTech Hall.
The author of this blog is Andrew Brown is executive director, Enterprise and IoT Research for Strategy Analytics
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