The global consumer IoT market for mobile services providers (MSPs) will be $6.6 billion by 2023, reported ABI Research Wednesday. “Consumer IoT is a nascent and fragmented market where connectivity is an essential enabler,” it said. “MSPs can play a key role in driving the growth of the consumer IoT market from tracking applications to the connected car.” By launching consumer IoT products with “flexible” business models, MSPs can help generate customer demand, which will attract more OEMs to produce more consumer IoT devices, it said: Tech companies “have been slow to target this nascent market.”
The House Wednesday passed by voice vote a bill directing a Commerce Department study on the IoT (see 1805220041). Reps. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., co-authored the State of Modern Application, Research and Trends of IoT Act.
T-Mobile's criticisms of Dish Network's narrowband IoT and spectrum deployment plans (see 1810260047) are "a blatant attempt to stifle competition" and legally meritless, Dish responded Tuesday to FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale. The "baseless claims" are aimed at preventing a disruptive new market entrant and rest largely on the unsupported proposition the IoT network won't meet buildout requirements since it won't use "some undefined sufficient portion" of the company's spectrum, it said: Its spectrum licenses don't have any minimum loading or spectrum use requirements, it said. Dish IoT plans differ from "license saving" deployments that fell short of buildout requirements since its network will be a neutral host platform for third parties alongside Dish's IoT offerings, the company said. It said T-Mobile wrongly asserted the AWS-4, H block and lower 700 MHz E block are supposed to be used for mobile broadband since they're licensed for flexible use. Dish said the carrier should have aired concerns 20 months ago, when it made its IoT plans public, before radios, chipsets and RF designs were committed to and developed. T-Mobile emailed that Dish's response "makes it even clearer they’re merely buying time, at a cost to consumers, hoping to figure out a meaningful ‘Phase 2’ business plan. The FCC’s construction requirements are intended to ensure spectrum is put to use in a timely manner -- DISH has missed the mark and the FCC should enforce its rules.”
The Commerce Department is the proper agency to enforce a national certification process for IoT devices (see 1802150034), Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., told the American Enterprise Institute, AEI said Tuesday. Their Cyber Shield Act establishes an advisory committee of cybersecurity experts to recommend cybersecurity benchmarks for IoT devices. Commerce has the “breadth, mission and responsibility” to implement such a program, the lawmakers said. Pressure is building to pass legislation on privacy and cybersecurity breaches, they argued, citing the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica privacy breach and the Equifax data breach. They noted CTIA in August launched a cybersecurity certification program for IoT devices.
By offering compelling IoT and machine-to-machine services, mobile satellite service operators can avoid an IoT connectivity price war with 5G, smallsat constellations and low-power wide area networks, Northern Sky Research's Alan Crisp blogged. Customers might at first be attracted to lower prices of competitors, but those options have drawbacks and those prices often are for very specific uses, he said. High-value applications in areas like maritime and energy will want full-featured M2M constellations, especially since their uses generally can't be replicated on other smallsat constellations, and there likely will be somewhat distinct market segments between MSS and smallsats, the analyst said Monday.
Fabless semiconductor company InnoPhase said companies are in the final stages of development for products based on its nascent digital radio architecture capable of improving battery life of Wi-Fi, LTE and other IoT wireless device protocols by two to eight times. InnoPhase's PolaRFusion architecture is designed to expand the battery-based IoT market, said the company Wednesday, drawing on Moore’s Law for lower power and smaller die sizes even as products move to more advanced semiconductor process nodes. IoT products based on PolaRFusion “can cut the cord and be battery-based,” said the company, suggesting cloud-connected smart door locks, security cameras, smart speakers and patient monitoring equipment with batteries that last for “months or even years, not weeks.” PolaRFusion integrates low-cost, nonlinear digital signal processors to receive, process and transmit industry-standard protocols via software with required sensitivity, signal output levels, data rates and other critical RF specifications. Multiprotocol wireless products based on the design are in field testing, with volume production slated for early next year, said InnoPhase. Designing in long-life batteries and eliminating power cords from smart home devices can have convenience and decluttering benefits for consumers, said Futuresource analyst Filipe Oliveira in InnoPhase's announcement.
ON Semiconductor is demonstrating ultra-low-power IoT prototype platforms this week at electronica 2018 in Munich. Demos based on its RSL10 radio SoC include the Bluetooth IoT development kit and energy-harvesting Bluetooth low-energy switch. Demos will show mesh networking, battery-less edge nodes and audio and vision solutions powering artificial intelligence at the edge, ON said. The RSL10 is said to consume 62.5 nanowatts in sleep mode and 7 milliwatts when receiving. The SoC, integrating an RF transceiver and Arm Cortex-M3 microcontroller, is designed for intelligent and connected IoT edge nodes, which can operate solely from harvested energy for battery-free, no-maintenance operation, said the company.
Ericsson was hired to create the radio access and core network for Dish Network's planned narrowband IoT network, Dish said Tuesday. Ericsson is the first wireless vendor hired for the network deployment, scheduled for March 2020, Dish said. It said it and Ericsson have validated narrowband IoT data transmissions based on 3rd Generation Partnership Project standards, including extended range communications of up to 100 kilometers from a base station.
Samsung filed applications last week in South Korea and the U.S. to register a trademark for the SmartThings IoT subsidiary it bought four years ago (see 1408180053), Patent and Trademark Office records show. The trademark consists of Korean characters in “stylized font” that “transliterate” to SmartThings but have “no meaning in a foreign language,” said the applications. Wednesday, the company didn’t comment.
CTIA said it’s accepting devices for IoT cybersecurity certification that connect to a carrier network, to validate if they meet security requirements. “The program protects consumers and wireless infrastructure, while also creating a more secure foundation for smart cities, connected cars, mHealth and other IoT applications,” CTIA said Tuesday. Things are headed "toward an increasingly connected future” including appliances, cars and watches, said Chief Technology Officer Tom Sawanobori.