BARCELONA, 2nd March 2015—Yesterday at Mobile World Congress (MWC) senior government and industry figures gathered to address regulatory bodies, mobile network operators, vendors and intergovernmental organisations, on the increasing role of cellular M2M and IoT solutions across a range of different verticals.
The address was chaired by Jeanine Vos, Executive Director, Connected Living, GSMA, and followed the release of the GSMA’s report ‘The Impact of the Internet of Things: the Connected Home’, which contained evidence of the widespread adoption of connected devices and services in a number of different markets. For example, approximately one in four people in Germany, Japan, the UK and the US already own a connected device such as a smart meter security system, lighting system or health monitor.
Both consumers and decision makers are becoming increasingly aware of myriad benefits and cost effectiveness of connectivity, making the Connected Living’s role in the Ministerial Programme a unique forum for the fruitful discussion of how M2M and the IoT feature in public projects.
There were a number of encouraging messages from our keynote speakers. Yasuo Sakamoto, Vice Minister for Policy Coordination, Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan, stated that M2M should be used to deliver public services arguing that it has huge potential to address social challenges, particularly in disaster and infrastructure management, healthcare, and smart cities.
Glenn Lurie, President and CEO, AT&T Mobility claimed that IoT is going to change the way we live work and play and that it is about enabling services that make our life easier. It was Lurie’s view that what will really accelerate the growth of the IoT will be its ability to simplify to day-day life.
Lord Jim Knight, Managing Director for Online Learning, TES Global, argued that the IoT would greatly enhance the quality of education and fundamentally change the way educational services are delivered. He claimed that the biggest challenge was one of implementation, but nonetheless, was optimistic about the growth of the IoT and the role it would have in improving education but highlighting that there would also need to be a cultural change which would be key in facilitating the adoption of IoT in education.
Mohammad Chowdhury, Partner, PWC, was convinced that the IoT will transform both the economy and society but considered it to be at an early stage of development. He highlighted the need for an investment friendly environment and a technology neutral approach for it to deliver the expected benefits.
These messages should give those in the industry confidence that government and high-profile figures, across different cultures and nations, understand the benefits of M2M and the IoT, and have indicated that they are prepared to argue for more investment in order to advance this technology.
Throughout the week the GSMA Connected Living programme will be hosting a series of events at MWC designed to encourage industry cooperation and interoperability. For more information on these events, please visit our MWC events page.