The 4G opportunity and how businesses can make the most of it

The rollout of 4G networks will significantly change the UK wireless systems market and will bring new opportunities for business. LTE will enable super-fast internet connection and will foster the development of a new generation of low latency, high speed M2M applications for diagnostics, navigation, infotainment, industrial controls, content download, video, etc. Small, medium and large enterprises will be able to benefit from improved productivity, reduced operational costs and more innovation if they manage to make the most of the 4G opportunity. With 4G, enterprises will be able to introduce new ways of working as well as new products and services to help them stay ahead of their competitors. Particular improvements can be achieved in the healthcare, automotive and construction sectors where 4G will enable a new breed of M2M services that have the potential to revolutionise these industries in the long term.

The faster internet connection and download speed will further facilitate mobile working and will boost productivity in rural areas where the internet coverage has traditionally been poor. LTE also provides significantly lower latency than 3G technologies which will further enhance user experience, especially for activities like web browsing or IP voice.

However, to be able to take advantage of all these opportunities businesses need to account for a number of challenges related to connectivity issues, power efficiency and limited coverage of 4G networks.

To perform seamlessly in a heterogeneous environment, LTE-connected apps will have to work across multiple carrier networks, wireless connectivity bands, and technology platforms.

However, while 4G is being introduced, there will be plenty of regions where LTE is restricted to high-density pockets of coverage, separated by large areas of 3G or even 2G service. As a result, LTE apps will need multi-mode capabilities to switch between different connectivity options and band combinations.

Another significant issue is ensuring compatibility of mobile and connected devices with new generations of 4G. As LTE technology evolves to LTE Advanced connectivity to deliver even faster speed, all players in the market will need to develop flexible solutions that can accommodate new connectivity options and market trends. This means that businesses will need to ensure that their connected devices can be easily upgraded to the next generation of LTE or at least can have a long lifecycle based on the existing internet standard.

The mass rollout of 4G will also create great opportunities for businesses looking to take advantage of the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve work efficiency and launch new services.

One of the key advantages of LTE in this regard is that it is a highly scalable technology that supports IPv6 addressing. This will enable more devices to be connected to the Internet turning the vision of IoT into a reality and fostering the mainstream adoption of M2M apps and connected devices within enterprises.

Recent research suggests that in the next five years there will be more connected devices than people. This wide adoption of connected devices within enterprises will introduce a number of challenges related to the management of M2M solutions. If now businesses are struggling to manage hundreds of thousands of connected devices, in the near future they will be faced with the challenges of dealing with millions, if not billions of connected devices. This poses two major issues to organisations: how do you manage millions of M2M devices to ensure seamless performance and how do you scale up and down M2M services to meet the changing market demands.

One of the key issues related to the management of connected devices is the infrastructure itself. With multiple systems, connectivity layers, and data processing layers, the M2M management ecosystem is very complex to manage. To ensure seamless performance, each M2M device needs to be connected to a cellular network which interfaces with the back-end infrastructure through a cloud-based portal. To be able to manage this communication effectively, organisations will need effective mechanisms to subscribe wireless devices to the network and continuously monitor and update them.

Additionally, with large volumes of data generated every day by M2M devices, organisations will need more effective ways to simplify access to information in order to realise the operational efficiencies M2M solutions can provide. Therefore M2M service providers will need systems that collect information from wireless devices and the assets connected to them and enable practical use of the data. Another important requirement will be to provide efficient and easy configuration and management tools to remotely troubleshoot any potential connectivity issues and ensure reliable performance of critical applications.

This complex ecosystem of networks, devices and data processing systems will be the decisive factor determining the success of businesses when it comes to connecting hundreds of millions, if not billions of devices. With 4G this opportunity will become more pertinent, bringing forward the need for finding effective, scalable solutions for management of connected devices.

Manually subscribing devices to the M2M management system is not an effective solution for businesses looking to provision M2M services to hundreds of thousands or even millions of the new devices. With 4G moving into the M2M space, the introduction of new M2M services that were traditionally not possible with fixed-line communications is going to accelerate, and they will be able to transmit more data than ever before. Therefore enterprises need alternative options to enable easy scalability and management of M2M services.

One of the possible solutions is leveraging cloud-based technology for M2M management. A centralised cloud-based platform can dramatically reduce the technology infrastructure and management costs associated with rolling out M2M services on a large scale and can grow quickly with an enterprise’s evolving service needs. By centralising all components of the M2M management ecosystem into a single cloud-based platform, organisations will be able to speed up time-to-market for new services and ease the management process.

To deliver optimal results, this cloud infrastructure should be mobile operators agnostic to enable subscription of devices from different networks in different regions. It should also provide a comprehensive set of functionalities that address all steps of the M2M management process. These functionalities should go beyond simply pushing out firmware and configuration changes, to providing advanced wireless device management capabilities for remote diagnostics, repair and performance monitoring. And last but not least, M2M management platforms need to meet the highest security standards when it comes to network assurance and data security and privacy to ensure sensitive data is handled confidentially over wireless networks.

By centralising M2M management, organisations can keep IT costs under control and ensure seamless performance and scalability of new M2M services. This will allow businesses to focus their resources on improving their services and fostering innovation, while enabling them to stay ahead of their competitors.