Another standards group has been formed to accelerate the adoption of wireless Internet of Things technologies. Called the Wireless IoT Forum, the group's board includes Accenture, Arkessa, BT, Cisco, Telensa and WSN. The group joins at least five other standards groups, including the Industrial Internet Consortium, the Allseen Alliance, Thread and the Open Interconnect Consortium, that have been created to streamline the IoT space.
The Wireless IoT Forum said its goal is to stop fragmentation and consolidate around a minimal set of standards for both licensed and unlicensed wireless IoT solutions. In addition, the group said it will work with various end users to establish requirements and also work to build the IoT ecosystem.
The non-profit group will also help promote and market wireless IoT for wireless operators, infrastructure providers, fixed line operators, application developers and more.
"The risk presented by fragmentation remains very real. Without widely-agreed open standards we risk seeing pockets of proprietary technology developing independently, preventing the benefits of mass-market scale. We are delighted today to be announcing our inaugural membership and to begin work to drive towards a collective view on the right way to deliver widespread IoT services," said William Webb, CEO, Wireless IoT Forum in a prepared statement.
Last July, the Open Interconnect Consortium, (OIC) was launched by Intel, Samsung Electronics, Broadcom and other firms to try to formulate standards for IoT and stop fragmentation. Samsung also teamed up with Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) Nest Labs, ARM Holdings and others to create a new mesh wireless standard for the IoT market called Thread. In March 2014, AT&T (NYSE:T), Cisco Systems, General Electric, IBM and Intel formed the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) to create standards for the sensors inside machines and around cities as part of the Internet of Things. And in late 2013, the Linux Foundation created the AllSeen Alliance, which is using Qualcomm's IoT framework called AllJoyn to develop a new interoperable standard for connecting devices and objects to the Internet.
With at least five different standards groups working on IoT standards, some top industry executives are fearful that the competing standards will make it more difficult for IoT to get traction. And many have called for the competing standards to come together to form one group instead.
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