The main event of the session was of course hearing from the operators themselves. Cameron Coursey, Vice President for Product Development at AT&T, opened the discussion. “We see Mobile IoT technology as being able to break down barriers and move into market spaces that, as an industry, we haven’t been able to before. Connectivity is like oxygen. When you don’t have it, you miss it. But it’s foundational – it’s not everything.” A key challenge AT&T see, therefore, is helping the market to identify and understand specific needs, then tailoring the degree of connectivity required. “It can certainly be overkill if you’re using a big pipe of connectivity when all you need is a trickle,” Mr Coursey explained. With the manifold use cases available through IoT solutions, and the enormous variety of demands these will place on networks, growth will best be optimized where customers are able to assess accurately their needs, and purchase only what they require. Consumer satisfaction will therefore be optimised – as they pay the best possible price – while network capacity during rollout will be maximised, and with it accommodation of as many new customers as possible. Creating this efficient market out of initial uncertainty is among the first priorities of AT&T going forward. Once this connectivity has been optimized, predicts IoT General Manager at Sprint Mohamad Nasser, operators’ focus will shift to two subsequent priorities: making the network more robust and simpler to use, and what value can be created from using analytics with the data generated.This was echoed and built upon by Mark Bartolomeo, Vice President, Connected Solutions at Verizon, who explained that simplicity will be key to accommodating the proportional shift away from provisioning complex, personal devices. “Carriers have focused until now on connecting a relatively small number of devices with a very high degree of throughput, such as broadband devices.” Mr Bartolomeo explained. “Going forward we’ll see the inverse occurring: we’re expecting to connect an enormous number of devices, each placing a very low load onto the network, and that’s where the growth will come from.” For that to work, however, two things will need to happen: “It will need to be much simpler to connect, and much simpler to manage connections. We need a very seamless, low-friction approach to provisioning and managing, pursuit of which we’re seeing from carriers now with all the investment in IoT platforms.” Also key to driving growth will be the opportunities arising from driving down the cost both of units and connectivity. Where IoT today largely relates to management of high-value assets, due to the present cost of units and connectivity, as these are brought down carriers will be able to connect much lower-value assets. “As carriers build out their IoT core, we’ll be able to strip out many of the third-party licensing costs associated with managing the complexities of items such as smartphones, which will yield further major cost efficiencies, which translates into expanding market interest.”
