IoT Connectivity - Challenges & Options

According to Ericsson, the number of IoT devices with cellular connections will reach 1.5 billion by 2022. But it’s not the only option to achieve the goals with the technology.

IoT wireless connectivity is the essence of the scope. It empowers each particular deployment that makes it’s a crucial part of the potential ecosystem to choose before the launch.

Being a unifying link between basic components of an IoT architecture it’s vital for performance stability, quality and speed. That’s why it’s important to look into each option deeply to discover which type with which features is the best option for your project.

IoT connectivity services: what to consider

However before browsing standards, protocols and providers you should define your project goals and requirements for the aspect and overall.

Scope

The field of application defines the operating environment that can cause additional complications for the deployment. Each option has some acceptable range of failures that the connectivity in IoT systems shouldn’t exceed to fulfill the set purpose.

For instance, logistics solutions should be able to maintain a long-range of connections, examples of IoT in retail for customer-engagement purposes - a big number of users, mining - uninterrupted contact to establish monitoring and required interaction.

Project

The ecosystem can initially dictate the type of IoT connectivity solutions due to the inability to implement the other ones due to hardware or software specifics. It can also demand the combination of types so devices and IoT platforms can take the most benefit.

Other features like location, space, topology, power type, consistency, etc. can add to the number of challenges for the system enablement. Even applied standard solutions can face difficulties placed not in an average environment.

Scalability

Although you’re creating ways to resolve current issues or optimize existing workflow you should always aim for the future. Even each reconfiguration can put an additional burden on your management.

To avoid functionality losses or security gaps, ensure the flexibility of the IoT connectivity strategy for your ecosystem and versatility of the provider plan to satisfy possible growth scenarios. Any especially untimely changes can be too costly in financial and operational senses.

Budget

Some of the options imply subscription plans that add to the total cost of IoT system deployment and maintenance in the long run. Although this is the aspect where you should better avoid quality compromises the expenses still should be reasonable.

Any IoT solution has defined purpose that has the IoT connectivity requirements and in particular the main one - suitability. Any overcomplications of this demand will result in nothing more than excessive budget extensions putting away the destination of digital transformation - cost efficiency.

IoT connectivity evolves with the scope. So you can’t assign any particular type for some number of situations to pick from. The parameters become more adjustable and versatile including range, bandwidth, and power consumption.

IoT connectivity examples

Let’s reveal what actually you can select from.

Wi-Fi

The technology-driven by customer expectations in the latest years extremely grew in the coverage thanks to business and governmental initiatives. Multimedia as the frequent data type induced progress in bandwidth and transmission speed.

However, the application in IoT opened new requirements for the connectivity type and namely reduction of power consumption for the wide-ranged systems. The scope interest resulted in the emergence of HEW (802.11ax) and HaLow (802.11ah) that addressed the difficulty.

Due to the everyday applicability, it’s much more user-friendly including in the aspects of monitoring and maintenance. It's beneficial for IoT system due to:

Unlimited bandwidth. Transmitting or even streaming large amounts of data in a single makes not a lot of differences speed-wise than for short messages.

Short latency. Wi-Fi network infrastructure is much simpler than cellular that allows almost immediate information delivery disregarding the distance between recipients.

Easy setup. Being the more spread selection of IoT connectivity standards among average users the establishment can appear as more straightforward.

Low cost. An affordable solution in the long run in comparison to cellular due to the absence of recurring costs except for those charged by IoT platforms.

However, it loses in the stability range of the possible coverage that can be even smaller due to the availability of barriers like walls, etc. and the quality is dependent on the router performance. That’s why for conformity with demands it may require additional devices.

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