Mobile World Congress is approaching again – running from 25 February to 28 February in Barcelona – and IoT is naturally remaining centre stage.
The 8th Mobile IoT Summit is perhaps the keynote event in the industry’s IoT calendar. This year’s Summit looks forward to IoT ‘Going Global’ this year: it brings together IoT experts from leading operators and their partners in security, manufacturing and the vertical industries – senior figures from Ericsson, Nokia, AT&T, Huawei and more – to consider successes to date and chart the course ahead.
Top of the agenda will be maximising business value from Mobile IoT, the family of technologies incorporating LTE-M and NB-IoT; how Mobile IoT and 5G will be used increasingly to complement one another over the longer term; and, perhaps most tangibly alluring for attendees, the latest existing commercial deployments. These will include smart parking meters and environmental monitors using LTE-M, and SIM-based E2E security devices using NB-IoT. Attendance is free, but due to reliably overwhelming demand for places, we do ask delegates to register here.
Those who can’t make it to the Summit to check out the latest examples of IoT innovations can always do so via the GSMA Innovation City throughout the Mobile World Congress, where they can drop in to see everything from connected honey bees, to intelligent water, to even a protocol droid. Or, for a more immersive view, for those hoping to play a role in designing such solutions themselves, there are the Mobile IoT Experience sessions, where the experts and developers will demonstrate how IoT devices are connected to licensed low power wide area networks.
IoT Seminars on Cybersecurity, Drones and IoT Capabilities
This year’s IoT Seminars will look into how operators are broadening the scope of their business offerings: the big picture here will be tackled by the session titled Beyond Connectivity – Operator IoT Capability, which will focus on what is emerging as a central theme for the industry as a whole with the growth of IoT. The wholesale transition of operators from vendors of connectivity largely as a utility, through access to their networks – to integrated providers of connected services themselves – marks one of the great turning points in cellular history.
The emerging roles for operators in this rapidly connecting world will be enabled by technologies including distributed ledger, machine learning and edge computing, and will allow them to look increasingly beyond traditional revenue streams. Discussion on the opportunities and challenges of business outside those former parameters will be led this year by senior technical and management directors from China Mobile, Telefonica, Singtel, Far EasTone and others – places are limited but free, and will be allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis to those who register here.
More specifically, there will be a session on the multitudinous uses for cellular UAVs at the Internet of the Skies – Connecting Drones session, which will draw on the building expertise in this area of Deutsche Telekom, Verizon and others. Of paramount importance to such deployments – and to consumer trust in the IoT which will prove vital to its viability – will be the progress discussed during the session on Future Proofing the Internet of Things – IoT Security Today and Tomorrow, which as ever will see a live hack demo and bring everyone up to speed on the latest standards, guidelines and developments in security, drawing on the considerable knowledge of senior security experts from Orange, SIMalliance and Telit, as well as the GSMA.
It’s a crucial year for the IoT, as the industry tackles head-on the security battles to win over the coming months to ensure the connected world’s ability to scale. If you’d like to play your part, or even just start to take part in the conversation, we hope you can make your way to our packed agenda for this year’s IoT contingent at the Mobile World Congress!