Nokia Emphasizes the Need for More IoT Standards

The Internet of Things is here, and we’re beginning to see the IoT in action in everything from connected car, health care, lighting, manufacturing, oil & gas, smart city and home, and much more. But while the IoT is taking off on a number of fronts, it’s not moving as quickly as it could due to the lack of standards. Recently Nokia has been trumpeting that fact.

In an interview with me at IoT Evolution Editor’s Day Silicon Valley, Stefan Kindt, head of technology at Nokia Networks, noted that the potential use cases for IoT seem limitless, which is all the more reason for the industry to move away from the siloed approach to IoT we’ve taken to date and toward a more horizontal approach that will both allow for reusability and faster time to market and will enable organizations with multiple IoT use cases to leverage a single set of resources to power them and add to their value by sharing data between them.

This horizontalization of IoT, as some refer to it, will require more standard interfaces, Kindt said. Some industry initiatives such as OneM2M, he noted, are working on IoT standards. OneM2M, he said, is working to address the middle layer of the connectivity platform and is just entering the second phase of its work to become more specific. But more work in creating open, standard interfaces on a variety of fronts is needed, Kindt indicated. Standards are also needed around such things as applications enablement, analytics, indoor positioning and smart sensors, location mapping, and security.

“The key point is that we need to have a common understanding that the early IoT activities are just a snapshot of what IoT in the future will really mean,” he said.

Nokia is playing in the connectivity layer of IoT. Nokia also intends to play “a vital role” in the analytics and management aspects of IoT, he said, adding that the company is defining its portfolio components. The connected car and public safety are two IoT areas of interest for Nokia, which is keeping its vertical IoT ambitions beyond that close to the vest.