While the Internet is currently designed for expensive, high-bandwidth connections such as video streaming, connections for the Internet of Things don’t need as much.
At least that’s what Google’s developer advocate Don Dodge believes.
He told the MIT Technology Review Digital Summit last week that cheaper networking for IoT is more important than faster networking, according to Light Reading.
"It’s got a cell phone — not duct taped to it, but it’s attached. And they use a cell phone to transmit the data from the sensor to the server at $40 a month. So how do you do that when you have a sensor on the dumpster that’s only sending kilobytes of information maybe once a day, or maybe once a week? You can’t spend $40 a month for that," he said.
"What we’re going to have to do is build a brand new network, because up to now Cisco and all the networking guys have focused on very high bandwidth, very high throughput, very high quality, but that’s the opposite of what you need for the Internet of Things."
Sounds sensible, right? Well, I recently asked Jim Tully, the VP distinguished analyst for IoT at Gartner, whether or not he agrees IoT applications would be better serviced through a different kind of network.
The answer? It’s not so black and white.
"Some applications do need high speed and high bandwidth networks. Set top boxes, for example, need very high bandwidth. But some things only generate very small amounts of data that only needs to be accessed infrequently," he told me.
"Some of these things are too far away from base stations to be able to use the cellular network. Sensors in fields are one example.
"This is why Neul, for example, has been developing solutions based on the Weightless specification. One use of this involves much longer range communication at low frequencies for low throughput applications."
