The next small thing will be much bigger than anyone thinks

THE universe of connected devices, known as the Internet of Things, is changing our world in unimaginable ways.

A clue to the scale of coming change can be picked up in the numbers being bandied about for the number of connected devices we will see by 2020. Cisco, Ericsson, Gartner and McKinsey have all forecast between 20 billion and 50 billion “things” connected to the internet by then.

It can be argued, however, that all of these seers have got it hopelessly wrong. Not because the number is too big, but because it is far too conservative. Already, more than two billion people are using smartphones globally. Not only is that number expected to double in the next five years, but a high proportion of people will be using more than one smartphone. More than a billion smartphones are sold every year, so these numbers, too, may be conservative.

And that is only the most visible of connected devices. The market for RFID tags, which allow almost any objects to communicate their presence or position, has already passed the 10 billion mark. More than 60 million cars are produced every year, and most have at least one form of connection. By 2020, self-driving and assisted-driving vehicles will account for hundreds of connected sensors in every single vehicle.

The push towards smart cities, with connected sensors for everything from smart water meters to traffic lights, will also account for billions of devices.

When IBM suggested at the beginning of the decade that the IoT may reach a trillion connected devices by 2020, the forecast was roundly rejected and even condemned by observers. Yet that is probably closer to the emerging reality than “official” forecasts.

It also hinges on how one defines the IoT. For example, some exclude smartphones from the equation. But a narrow definition that only recognises an internet of non-handheld things, for example, misses the point that such devices are still connected when people are not using them to communicate.

Specialised forms have also emerged, such as Narrowband IoT, which relies on a radio technology standard called Low Power Wide Area. This allows a device to send small pieces of data at regular intervals without requiring constant charging.

At the AfricaCom telecommunications expo in Cape Town this week, Vodacom and MTN announced major initiatives for building out Narrowband IoT networks.

MTN and Huawei launched a smart water metering solution that allows for the automated collection of utility meter data, eliminating labour costs and inaccurate data, as well as alerting local authorities to water pipeline leakage.

Babak Fouladi, group chief technology and information officer of MTN, promised many new IoT services, from wildlife tracking to smart parking.

Vodacom Business chief officer Vuyani Jarana said he expected a wave of connected things, including environmental monitoring devices and smokedetector alarms.

Andy MacDonald, Cisco’s vice-president for global service providers in Middle East, Africa and Russia, said the IoT knew no bounds. In an interview with Business Times at AfricaCom, he pointed out that 300 million more objects were connected every week.

The conservative forecasts, he said, were because “it takes great imagination to think about and understand all the implications. People are only scratching the surface of how the technology will change business.”

Goldstuck is the founder of World Wide Worx and editor-inchief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @art2gee