5G: The Future of IoT takes a look at the electronic market, trends and cellular technology solutions that will create our connected future.
Market drivers provide added value through connectivity of all “things” ranging from street lighting to home appliances to industrial robotics. Providing connectivity to things has become easier with improvements in the economics of end devices, large investments in IoT systems, adoption of global standards and availability of spectrum. Overall trends in information technology such as cloud computing and edge cloud, artificial intelligence and security assurance have accelerated the IoT ecosystem. The whitepaper discusses some of the market segments in more details, including industrial IoT, smart cities, enterprise IoT and consumer IoT. The whitepaper also provides an overview of developments in 3GPP standards for IoT, looking at both the Massive IoT and Critical IoT segments. It starts with the 3GPP requirements for IoT and goes on to cover the high level 3GPP solutions to meet these requirements. For Critical IoT, the Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) radio and architecture are described. For Mission Critical IoT, it describes the role of the 5G core network as well as improvements in the radio. It also addresses the factory automation vertical for which several new features have been introduced in 3GPP to allow operation of 5G systems together with IEEE TSN. It provides an update of spectrum options for licensed, unlicensed and shared bands. In essence, the 3GPP standards are themselves a market driver in the future-proofing and delivery of IoT as networks transform from 4G to 5G.
The 5G networks being deployed today will build upon the 4G LTE networks including both NarrowbandIoT (NB-IoT) and LTE Category M1 (LTE-M or LTE for Machines). Additional security, automation and management functions on 5G radio and core networks will deliver the ultra-reliability requirements for Critical IoT solutions. As use cases continue to develop in the market with more applications, the Industrial IoT, Consumer IoT and Enterprise IoT markets are flourishing. The massive IoT of the future –with connectivity across many vertical domains—will be insured by the mobile cellular Internet of Things.
