We finally have a vendor coming out to say that maybe WiFi and not 5G is the answer to IoT connectivity requirements. An SDxCentral report says Broadcom isn’t depending on 5G to open up connectivity, but instead points out that when 4G came along, operators had aspirations of replacing WiFi in buildings, only to come back to WiFi in the end. So, is this an opportunistic play on Broadcom’s part, or maybe even the start of new realism? The concept of the “Internet of things” has an inherent imperfection in the definition of both “Internet” and “things”.
Do IoT elements have to be “on” the Internet in that they are directly connected to it via some fixed or wireless technology, or can they simply be accessible from the Internet via some intermediary hub or controller? Popular thinking seems to favor the former, and the concept of open public sensors and controllers, but reality suggests the latter. Today, and for the foreseeable future, it would seem, the vast majority of IoT devices are installed as subordinate to a controller or hub.
The second issue is harder, and it creates a demand underpinning for the first. As I’ve noted in earlier blogs, we already have a rich market for facility-installed sensors and controllers, in the home security market and for the increasingly hot space of active home control through voice agents (Alexa or Google Home) or smartphones. Here, we are seeing a bit of a market shift that has to be accounted for in our thinking about the future.
Home security sensors and even process control sensors and controllers have traditionally used either hard wiring or a specialized wireless protocol that can run over the air or via home powerline. Think Insteon, X10, or Zigbee. There are legions of vendors supporting these devices, they’re cheap and open, and they are also supported by home control hubs that can then expose them to home agents, voice or otherwise.
These gadgets tend to be geekie, though. Setting up a home security system using any of the traditional technology options is something difficult for the average user, and in any event there’s a trend to focus increasingly on WiFi-connected elements when new applications (like doorbells, security cameras, and thermostats) are introduced. These devices are often supported with published APIs that enable integration not only with apps and voice control, but also with other applications.
What this seems to be doing is gradually shifting the market focus from the technology-centric sensor/controller frameworks of the past to an app-centric, WiFi-connected, framework. At one level, that increases the chance that Broadcom is making the right choice in backing WiFi for IoT connectivity, but there’s still more happening.
Home WiFi isn’t the most secure thing in the world, as many people have learned. One big problem is that the security of WiFi-connected devices is variable because vendors don’t always design them to be secure and don’t always upgrade their firmware to respond to news of a vulnerability. Once a device on the home network is compromised, it’s possible to interfere with or even access other devices on the same network. In addition, home Internet connections are almost always subject to tampering by the simple expedient of cutting the wires (or fiber) at the entry point. Enter cellular.
Many higher-end home security systems have the option for a cellular backup connection, for which the user pays a monthly fee. This connection can’t have its wires cut; it’s run off the system battery, and that battery raises a counterpressure to the WiFi connection trend. Running home sensors from WiFi requires a lot more power, which means that fully WiFi-connected security grids may be too power-hungry to run long from batteries. Thus, the desire for tamper-proof notification of authorities in the event of a problem may drive at least higher-end users (who are still the largest source of “IoT” deployments) to use less WiFi and more direct wiring, low-power local telemetry, and cellular connections.
5G itself could change this dynamic, not so much through “mobile” 5G but through millimeter wave and the 5G/FTTN hybridization we’re already seeing emerge. If we presume that a given facility (home, office, or factory) were to be connected via 5G/FTTH, then we’d have two things; a local 5G transceiver and antenna in the facility, and a wireless connection to the outside world. Could this combination impact the situation?
Current PCs, phones, tablets, doorbells, cameras, and thermostats don’t have 5G connectivity. The early 5G/FTTN hybrids will use millimeter wave that’s not suitable for mobile phone use, so many of these devices will never have 5G mm wave connectivity. What could happen, though, is that network operators who deploy 5G/FTTN will provide their own facility-control hubs based on that technology, or include features to support facility control in their broadband gateways. Third-party controllers and devices could then connect via WiFi. That, of course, brings us back to WiFi.
The situation for IoT elements that aren’t in facilities (homes, offices, or other places where there’s WiFi or 5G/FTTN connectivity). There, we’d need to either connect them with wiring or via cellular, including mobile 5G. This is the 5G mission operators are excited about, for the obvious reason that they could get a lot of new 5G service customers. However, it’s likely that those interested in most IoT applications won’t want to pay the freight for that connection. One major city’s planner told me that even if their mobile operator offered to discount connections for IoT devices to a third or even a quarter of the basic cell-service price, the cost would be too high. He said the city would wire the sensors instead.
As was the case with 4G, then, 5G has some crippling issues if it’s used to target IoT applications. The biggest one is the same—cost of service. That doesn’t mean that 5G chips won’t be needed, only that where they’re needed is likely to be the same kind of mobile devices that use earlier-generation chips. For that space, both quantities of chips and likely market leadership is already established.
It’s really the millimeter-wave stuff that Broadcom and others should be looking at. There seems little doubt that the 5G/FTTH hybrid method of delivering “wireline” broadband will be broadly deployed in urban and suburban areas, and even in rural pockets where density is high enough. Obviously, this version of 5G will have more range than WiFi, enabling “roaming” within a neighborhood and even reducing the need for 5G mobile data plans.
Then there’s the possible impact of 5G/FTTN hybrids on legacy wireline providers. Might they decide to offer 5G mm-wave services from their own node points, just to get in on the neighborhood service or (if they’re a cable MSO) offer mobile service over a wider area? We don’t know how far 5G mm-wave would reach or if it would be added to the inventory of mobile device frequencies, but it’s possible.
For right now, Broadcom may have made the right choice by dodging the 5G wave and staying out of 5G IoT. For later on? We’ll have to see on that point.