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#Connectivity & IoT

What businesses need to know about the changing world of IoT

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6 Mins.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized the way we live. In an evolving connectivity landscape, IoT solutions bring about many benefits for enterprises – but also several challenges.

It used to be that anyone could be connected, now anything can be connected. Until 1999, the term “Internet of Things” didn’t even exist. Today, some estimates suggest that by 2024, the total number of connected IoT devices will reach 83 billion.1

IoT has evolved exponentially over the past few years, promising convenience and efficiency via connected devices, and it is about to enter one of the most exciting periods in its history. Scalable and secure IoT connectivity solutions play a vital role in providing industry players with safe, seamless, and cost-effective ways to capitalize on the IoT evolution and build resilience for the future.

IoT trends and developments

No industries have been left untouched by the IoT evolution, marking the future of IoT. For healthcare, patient data can be collated for more accurate diagnoses. For agriculture, smart farming is now a reality, with real time data helping farmers make increasingly informed decisions. For the retail sector, AR and VR will transform the way we shop. Smart cities are using IoT devices to analyze data and improve infrastructure and public services, and smart mobility is making roads safer and transportation more efficient. The Internet of Things has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, letting us work smarter, live smarter, and save money and time.

A person holds a smartphone and points to a diagram on a laptop screen

IoT’s rapid development can prove beneficial to small and mid-sized enterprises too – not just corporations, as in the past. With scalable and cost-effective solutions leveraged by cloud integration, the usage and implementation of connectivity services is made feasible for small and mid-sized enterprises.

The telecommunications industry is one of the leading players when it comes to IoT technologies, in part thanks to the ability to use existing network infrastructure as the groundwork for developing new solutions and services based on IoT technologies.

New requirements for the world of IoT

Opportunities are abundant, but at the same time, our capacious, hyper-connected IoT world is creating complex challenges that need to be addressed.

The growth of IoT has many benefits, but enterprises are experiencing some major connectivity pain points: an increase in security threats makes it harder to secure IoT devices, a lack of compliance, decentralized platforms that do not enable seamless management, siloed networks and departments that prevent enterprises achieving their goals, and insufficient network security levels and resilience, to name a few.

In connectivity services, there is an increasing demand for end-to-end offerings that are cost-efficient, scalable, flexible, transparent, secure and convenient, all at once. In the past, these demands simply could not be fulfilled – they were byzantine to implement, there were technical limitations, or solutions were too expensive. For a long time, enterprises simply had to make do with networks that had not been designed for IoT connectivity. Tailored enterprise network ownership provides the answer to these challenges, offering enterprises the solutions to these pain points.

Secure IoT connectivity across private and public networks

G+D recently acquired Pod Group – the world’s first IoT Enterprise Network Operator (ENO). An ENO is a new breed of connectivity service provider that helps place IoT network ownership back in the hands of enterprises, enabling secure IoT connectivity seamlessly across public and private networks, which enhances flexibility and control for enterprises.

As Sam Colley, CEO of Pod Group explains: “It’s about delivering the infrastructures and tools to enable enterprises to easily deploy and scale IoT to deliver maximum operational efficiency. For IoT to have a major positive impact on the world, it is important that it is made much more accessible.”

Carsten Ahrens, CEO G+D Mobile Security, agrees: “Pod Group works to take away the barriers to the adoption of IoT. And with its adoption, we have powerful new tools to sense, monitor, analyze, and control the world around us.”

“The Internet of Things is the biggest machine that mankind has ever made – we need to make it safe“
Carsten Ahrens
CEO G+D Mobile Security

Ownership of connectivity

Public mobile networks are not designed to serve global enterprise IoT and data transfer latency is a real issue. Private LTE/5G networks use the same technology as public networks, but network ownership means low latency, increased reliability and higher security.

 The benefits are many: enterprises have more control, giving them increased visibility over their connected devices, more flexibility, reduced connectivity costs, higher levels of IoT network security, and global scalability. Private networks are separate from the public Internet – making them ideal for critical applications.

With the support of Pod Group, challenges for enterprises reduce, giving them the trustworthy ownership of and easy management over connected devices. With maximum peace of mind, enterprises are then able to focus on their own core business.

Pod Group ensures that secure solutions are integrated seamlessly, something that is becoming increasingly important as the spectrum opens up for the deployment of private LTE and 5G networks. The eSIM and integrated SIM (iUICC) are important anchors for IoT, and the Pod Group acquisition enables G+D to provide future-proof solutions in an ever-changing world.

Reducing IoT complexity with a full service provider

The ever-changing world of IoT poses new challenges and new requirements for enterprises, which need to be met with the corresponding expertise. With a full solution provider such as Pod Group providing tailored and experienced solutions, enterprises can stay one step ahead, ensuring resilience, scalability and security, and optimizing IoT connectivity across networks.

  1. Juniper Research: IoT Connections to Reach 83 Billion by 2024, Driven by Maturning Industrial Use Cases, Business Wire, 2020

Published: 19/10/2021

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