Gemalto, a France-headquartered digital security company, revealed that telecoms and enterprise technology professionals primarily associate the Internet of Things (IoT) with consumer technology, but that deployments are being held back by security concerns.
In a study of around 1,000 industry players, some 51.8 per cent said they associated the term IoT with consumer applications including home automation and wearable technology. However, 42.4 per cent said security challenges remain the biggest inhibitor to IoT deployments, while 37.2 per cent cited a lack of standardisation as the biggest challenge facing the industry.
A breakdown of figures relating to consumer applications reveals that 28.5 per cent of respondents associate the term IoT with home automation and connected cars, with smartphones, tablets and wearable technology the next highest category on 23.3 per cent. Sensors ranked in third place (16.7 per cent) followed by smart cities (15.5 per cent).
Despite the concerns over security and standardisation, the majority (62.4 per cent) of respondents believe they will be ready to monetise the IoT by 2020. A quarter (24.9 per cent) of those respondents said they would be ready to make money from IoT in 2016, compared to 16.7 per cent who said they are ready today.
Research was conducted for Gemalto by Telecoms.com Intelligence, in partnership with IBM, F5 and Wind. The study focussed on four key areas: the IoT landscape; information security, cloud and IoT, and networking challenges and industrial IoT.
Tim Skinner, intelligence content manager at Telecoms.com, said the telecoms industry is "at the start of a very long journey" towards IoT, and that operators "can expect to be firmly planted in the middle of this connected world of the future; simultaneously managing the data and traffic requirements from consumer, enterprise, industrial and governmental sectors."
The study also highlighted uncertainty regarding IoT connectivity technologies. The majority (52.5 per cent) backed Wi-Fi as the most likely means of connecting 'things', far higher than the 16.9 per cent who backed Bluetooth Low Energy or the 5.8 per cent choosing ZigBee.
For more:
- download Gemalto's full report [PDF--registration required]
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