Businesses across varying sizes and industries are at different stages of moving from the left side of this diagram to the right, but we can say most businesses are progressively moving to the right. Historically, businesses have focused primarily on closed, static systems and leaned primarily around legacy systems and software including a focus on data being informational. Business work activities were much more labor and people intensive and driven respectively. Now we are entering into a phase of open businesses leveraging data for real-time intelligence and actions, along with leaning on technology including mobile, IoT, and edge computing. This advanced stage of business transformation is more connected than ever, and mobile is the primary foundation of this transformation.

Small and large businesses are mobile and portable, as we work, sell, and serve clients from anywhere and at sometimes at any time. These past few years have shown how important mobile is as our employees work from home or anywhere (and many will stay working from home), AND we seek to automate mundane work activities, and build intelligent operations while providing digital and virtual customer experiences. Mobile technology including mobile devices and services again sits at the foundation of the mobile economy. Employees continue to seek work-life balance and prefer to work around their children’s schedules, family activities, wellness routines, and much more AND mobile is the only technology to fill this need.

WATCH THE ON-DEMAND WEBINAR FOR MORE (download the full presentation here as well)
Sponsored by T-Mobile for Business and Produced by IDG

​Within the city construct there are a lot of considerations to delivering "Smart Solutions and Services". In this white paper we will explore the opportunities and benefits from a foundational perspective of connectivity strategies that leverage Fiber as the backbone for “Smart” service delivery.

Since the initial use of Fiber Optic Cable in the mid 70’s to connect US Government computers, we have seen an increase over the years in the use of fiber networking. However, it has not been as broadly recognized until recently just how integral the fiber backbone is to reliable, resilient broadband communications infrastructure is for the future of cities and municipalities alike.

While fiber networks are not new, the technology has continued to advance, and they are indeed the catalyst to just about every use case where “Smart” is included, supporting critical infrastructure and beyond. Fiber networks are not just for the purpose of faster internet, but think about latency sensitive solutions such as traffic monitoring and general multi-modal transportation, first responder services in the city and likewise utility distribution services to improve utility reliability and outage management.

Pre-pandemic, cities across North America were deploying Municipal Wi-Fi as a means of improving connectivity and access for citizens. These municipal networks often times leverage city deployed fiber but were typically only in the metropolitan downtown areas. This was shown to be an oversight, as with a bit more consideration, additional investment and partnership, the thousands of underserved citizens could have benefited from connectivity where there was none. Distance learning and the huge uptick in bandwidth utilization due to the pandemic have caused cities to rethink their connectivity strategy. Fiber networks, again, are the supporting foundation to service delivery to the cities and communities at large

Smart city solutions across the board depend on reliable communications infrastructure. For each application there is an endpoint that then requires the data to be backhauled to the cloud. Data analysis for any real-time insights depends heavily on receiving the data in a timely fashion, edge computing and the analytic insights will falter without the speed and throughput delivered by a fiber backbone.

​Written by Bill Pugh of Smart Connections Consulting

​Q: Please describe some of the overarching trends you are seeing in the IoT sector as it related to business automation, operations, and plans. Any specific use cases or industry specific examples are best, as it helps provide some context. 

A: We’re seeing growing demand from enterprises seeking to leverage IoT to increase operational efficiencies, reduce costs and make better data-informed decisions. McKinsey researchers predict IoT will have a potential economic impact of US $4-11 trillion by 2025, identifying manufacturing as the largest vertical (US $1.2-3.7 trillion). Despite the momentum IoT is gaining, the biggest hurdle for enterprises is navigating the inherently complex process of IoT implementation and deployment. We’ve worked with enterprises in the food services, life sciences and automotive industries last year and helped them achieve massive scale with their IoT implementation and deployment. From temperature monitoring to tracking of high-value assets and automated inventory management, enterprises are accelerating their digitization efforts. 

Q: In regards to your company/organization, what are some of the near term goals you and your team are focused on when it comes to BUSINESS (enterprise and government clients) solutions and product portfolio to better support scale and roll-out of connected/IoT solutions?

​A: Since our founding, MachineQ has developed global expertise in LoRaWAN® technologies and has played a key role in accelerating adoption in the associated LoRa® ecosystem. We have seen LoRaWAN move from one of many low-power, wide-area network (LPWAN) technology protocols, to the de facto global standard, and we see this adoption continuing to accelerate in the next 5 to10 years. In anticipation of this adoption and growth, we will continue to:

• Empower enterprises to deploy and manage dedicated IoT networks.
• Invest in specific, vertical solutions (e.g., MachineQ for Enterprise Asset Management) that are best-in class in addressing specific business outcomes for our enterprise clients.
• Enable a diverse ecosystem of enterprise IoT solution providers on the MachineQ network connectivity platform and maximize the ROI delivered to their customers by abstracting the complexity of deploying and managing IoT at scale. 

Q: In regards to your clients and prospects, please share some of the key use cases or core applications you are your clients are focused on to better understand what is driving current and upcoming adoption trends...provide examples of recent projects, how you are solving challenges or problems and providing business value.

A: Protecting High-Value Assets with MachineQ for Enterprise Asset Management, a Highly Accurate and Cost Effective RTLS Solution.

MachineQ for Enterprise Asset Management is an end-to-end solution that provides enterprises with a real-time view of high-value equipment, inventory, and movable assets. Leveraging MachineQ’s core IoT platform, this extremely high accuracy solution provides seamless deployments at massive scale using a unique combination of BLE and LoRaWAN technologies. As a result, the solution improves asset visibility, staff productivity, and equipment usage at a lower cost than RFID or manual processes.

One of our flagship customers is a global pharmaceutical biotech company that wanted to track R&D and lab equipment. Neither their attempt to locate equipment with human labor nor deploy an RFID solution was sustainable, resulting in lost employee productivity and hefty replacement costs for misplaced assets.

MachineQ offered the pharmaceutical biotech company a single point-of-contact with custom hardware for tracking, software for visualization/integration, and installation services. The solution also meets their essential requirements, including a dedicated, secure infrastructure for IoT innovation that is entirely independent of the corporate internet network, relieving any security concerns. The asset tags have extremely long battery life (10+ years), allowing the customer to have lower total cost of ownership (TCO). The engineering architecture supports the ability to track tens of thousands of assets per location and provides a sub-room level of accuracy, enabling equipment managers to locate equipment efficiently. And it includes a full suite of bi-directional APIs, allowing for easy and seamless integration with their existing ERP system.

With the new IoT-enabled solution in place, the pharmaceutical biotech company reduced costs annually by avoiding unnecessary replacement of high-value assets and freed up lab managers’ time searching for equipment. To date, the customer has leveraged the MachineQ for Enterprise Asset Management solution to track 14,000 assets across 850,000 square feet in real-time. With a LoRaWAN network now in place, the company plans to increase their return on investment by adding on additional use cases related to facilities management.

Optimizing Vehicle Location Processes and Reducing Operating Costs with an Outdoor Asset Tracking Solution Powered by MachineQ.

Among its most significant and largest customer deployments, MachineQ partnered with a solution partner, CoreKinect, to develop an outdoor asset tracking solution to streamline inventory management, reduce operational costs, and improve customer experience. Leveraging a unique, battery-efficient technology, CoreKinect developed a low-power, long-range (LoRa®) geolocation device that transmits location data in near-real-time, while supporting up to seven years of continuous use on a single battery. MachineQ gateways and cloud-based network infrastructure provide the LoRaWAN connectivity that powers the solution. Customers can integrate the location data into their own business applications or leverage CoreKinect's purpose-built application for data visualization. In regards to your clients and prospects, please share some of the key use cases or core applications you are your clients are focused on to better understand what is driving current and upcoming adoption trends...provide examples of recent projects, how you are solving challenges or problems and providing business value. Together, the companies deployed more than 160 MachineQ Field16c outdoor gateways and 325,000 CoreKinect devices at more than 80 North American locations for their customer in the automotive industry. The LoRaWAN solution enabled the customer to increase operational efficiencies by streamlining vehicle identification, location, and retrieval operations. With the ability to move inventory in and out in near-real time, the customer accelerated sales and increased customer satisfaction.

Q: Please describe some of the most exciting and innovative IoT products/services/solutions you are providing to your clients, and what is on the agenda to build out your portfolio in terms of new products, partnerships, alliances. 
​
A:

• MachineQ Network Connectivity Platform Enterprise customers and solution partners rely on MachineQ to power their IoT solutions leveraging the MachineQ platform. The network connectivity platform is flexible, reliable, secure, and can be tailored to the unique needs of customers and solution partners. The platform has robust integration capabilities, including pre-built hook-ins that make it easy for customers to stream their data to applications across MQTT, Webhook, or directly to public clouds, such as Azure IoT Hub and AWS IoT Core. MachineQ also has a robust portfolio of RESTful APIs, enabling customers to integrate network management functionality into their own applications. The platform makes it simple to manage a dedicated LoRaWAN® network by offering native tooling and streamlined delivery of integrated data. MachineQ expands upon the native security characteristics of the LoRaWAN specification by adding an extra layer of security between the gateway and network server, ensuring the chain of trust and security is maintained end-to-end. MachineQ's plug-and-play gateways make it easy to stand up a dedicated LoRaWAN network and provide secure, reliable connectivity that works right out of the box.
• MachineQ for Enterprise Asset Management MachineQ for Enterprise Asset Management is an end-to-end solution that provides enterprises with a realtime view of high-value equipment, inventory, and movable assets. Leveraging MachineQ’s core IoT platform, this extremely high accuracy solution provides seamless deployments at massive scale using a unique combination of BLE and LoRaWAN technologies. As a result, the solution improves asset visibility, staff productivity, and equipment usage at a lower cost than RFID or manual processes.
• Comcast Business Deployment Services As a Comcast Company, MachineQ provides additional value to customers with the ability to offer IT deployment services in partnership with Comcast Business. Tapping into a national ecosystem of professional and experienced engineers, MachineQ accelerates speed to market with critical support to install and deploy IoT solutions quickly and accurately.
• Partnerships (Solution Partners) Solution partners rely on MachineQ to power their IoT solutions by leveraging its all-in-one network connectivity platform. Whether partners are building a new or custom IoT solution, MachineQ enables its partner ecosystem to offer solutions for a variety of use cases including, energy and utility management, asset tracking, predictive maintenance, food safety and compliance, and more.

Q: Please share any recent news or articles that you believe would be relevant to share as examples of your work in the IoT sector. 

A:

• CoreKinect and Comcast’s MachineQ Launch Outdoor Asset Tracking Solution
• Comcast’s MachineQ Wins 2021 IoT Innovator Award from Compass Intelligence
• IoT Brings Relief to Restaurants Struggling with Worker Shortages
• Microsoft Joins the LoRa Alliance Board of Directors
• We talk IoT: Smart Water Metering – Staying Ahead of Floods
• Comcast’s MachineQ Wins 2021 IoT Evolution Business Impact Award
• LoRa Alliance® Achieves Goals to Drive Scale of LoRaWAN® for Massive IoT 

Q: Please provide the top 3 trends you are most excited about that will impact the business/enterprise market over the next 5 years. 

A:

• Rapid response devices for workplace safety in hospitality
• Enterprise asset management for real-time visibility of high-value equipment, inventory, and movable assets
• Growth of sustainability efforts in the smart building space leading more companies to implement energy management solutions and take IoT beyond just sensing to include automation 

Thinkers360 2022 Predictions are member-sourced from their opt-in B2B thought leader and influencer community with 100M+ followers on social media combined. The 2022 Predictions are part of a series to provide actionable insights for business and technology executives.

Thinkers360 asked a selection of their Thinkers360 global thought leaders and influencers about their predictions for the Future of Work in 2022. Here’s what they told us…
READ MORE AT THINKERS360

Smart cities or intelligent cities are not only about technology improving city services, but they are about improving the community experience as you live, work, and play. Yes, much has changed over the past 18 months, but city projects are moving forward and with a boost of energy because of the pandemic and new funding sources. The industry as a whole is finding new project opportunities centered around automation, remote operations, contactless services, public health and safety, and new ways to deliver legacy services to avoid the face-to-face interaction for safety purposes. A few key technologies directly aiding in smart city initiatives include Internet of Things (sensors, connecting assets, tracking assets, real-time alerting or intelligence), mobile applications, augmented or virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Historically, smart city projects have centered around traffic management, smart lighting, and city asset management, and while those areas are expected to continue to be areas of focus, new use cases are coming into the mix. Under the American Rescue Plan and Coronavirus Relief Fund (CARES ACT), cities and public schools are receiving emergency funding to support in projects related to safety, healthcare, and administering city services in new and safe ways.
READ MORE AT EXECUTIVE VIEWPOINT

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is another topic expected to grow as corporate America seeks to decarbonize operations and production, which is a heightened trend companies have been pushing as part of their sustainability and greener corporate strategies. Carbon capture is the process of capturing carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere and storing it. Carbon storage includes moving the liquid carbon to locations deep under the earth's surface. Ericsson's Åsa Tamsons wrote a blog this week sharing details around how industries can utilize 5G and other technologies to support zer emissions goals, titled "​How smarter industries can help decarbonize our planet."

As we gear up to update our Q1 numbers for B2B Wireless subscriber data (business wireless), we will share some insights on how the top three carriers ended their year in 2020. For this, we focus on just the business market including corporate liable (company gets and pays the bill) and business individually liable (employee gets partially or fully reimbursed, use of phone 50% or more of the time for business purposes) subscribers. But before we do that, let's take a look at the postpaid subscriber dip (shown above) the market experienced in 2020, driven by a complete halt on IT and tech spending due to the pandemic and COVID-19 impact.  Postpaid subscribers for the top 3 reached roughly 275 million by the end of 2020. At the same time, in Q1 of 2020, the T-Mobile/Sprint merger was also finalized and Q2 began the recording of the NEW company with consolidated subscriber numbers.

Each carrier has its strength in the business sector, and the fight is on in 2021 as T-Mobile takes direct charge at being the "underdog" and is expected to push the "un-carrier" move in the B2B sector. Verizon has dominated enterprise and government subscribers for decades, but experienced a very rough 1st half of 2020 and in fact ended the year with only a 43.2% share of all business subscribers, yet still very respectable. AT&T has found strength in its FirstNet client base and has garnered power in the federal sector, where Verizon traditionally dominated. AT&T experienced more of a roller-coaster of up and downs on their quarterly business wireless subscriber numbers, and ended the year with about 53K business subscribers (corporate liable and business individually liable). T-Mobile continues to push through and push up market (mid-sized and enterprise sized companies), where it traditionally found its base in the very small business and SOHO sector of the U.S. business market. At the end of 2020, T-Mobile (after the merger with Sprint) reached a 13.4% market share in just the Corporate Liable market alone.

Corporate Liable is where you get to the nitty gritty, as this is where loyalty, discounting, customer experience, and business relationships lie (including recurring revenue). As the mobility and work-from-home characteristics of customers witnessed in 2020 and into 2021, businesses will need to rethink their CL policies, preferred brands and carriers, and reimbursement structures as many employees are using personal devices for work purposes. As with corporate liable accounts, your company or organization pays for your bill and they may even provide you with a discount or partially reimburse you for the device itself.

Compass Intelligence expects the rest of 2021 to see continued competition in the CL space, as T-Mobile pushes the "un-carrier" business narrative even further into larger corporate accounts and will seek to steal Small Business share away from the other two. In addition, Compass Intelligence will continue to watch the market closely as changes in budget, priorities, and reimbursement for employee technology is impacted in 2021. At the end of 2020, corporate liable subscribers reached 54 million, while total business subscribers reached roughly 144 million in the U.S. 

Please check out Stephanie Atkinson's latest commentary, highlights, and personal remarks regarding the 2021 Consumer Electronics Show (#CES2021) held virtually.

Hello 2021, BYE BYE 2020!
​About a year ago I shared my predictions around 2020, but never even imagined what we would be going through in terms of disruption, covid-19 impact, and just a whirlwind of uncertainties across business of all sizes felt in 2020. I did mention last year that we would see 2020 as the year of '5G and The Edge' and that definitely was the case as we saw IoT solutions rely on edge computing to further real-time data intelligence and analytics needed for critical business applications and real-time intelligence for business operations.

As we push into 2021, below are a list of my top 5 predictions​:

1. ​Less than 25% of employees will go back into the office 1H of the year (does not include those essential workers), and it may rise to around 35-40% 2H of 2021. Push back from employees (in terms of returning to the office) will be expected as businesses seek specific employees returning back into offices, factory floors, operations, and working in their buildings. Many businesses will decide to keep employees working from home indefinitely, while others will prioritize employees that are "essential" to be back in the office or building. Knowledge workers and professionals, including administrative and customer support personnel will mostly remain working from the home. This means, business tools, applications/software, and PC/Mac related equipment for AV related communications will continue to be in demand and purchased to streamline operations and improve customer services. Just because the vaccine is rolling out in 2020, does not mean businesses will go back to normal or even fully go back to the way things were pre-COVID. People will need to brace for the fact that we are forever changed.
2. While we lose a ton of small businesses providing food and personal services, we will gain a whole host of new and entrepreneurial businesses in 2021…2020 saw a record breaking filings for Business Tax-IDs and during these hard times, as many seek to create their own path and start their own businesses. With recessions come entrepreneurialism, and many of those laid off workers will seek to start gig-based businesses, virtual companies, and small businesses to support their families. Numbers filed as of Q3 2020 shows massive growth in business TAX ID filings, especially in the mid-west and south (an 82% spike from 2019). The good news is, the experts or economists believe that with these filings, a high percentage of them are expected to employ others, which is something we need as unemployment numbers surge due to COVID-19 layoffs and business closures. The bad news is, there will be many that just won't make it. Please continue to support local and small businesses!
3. IoT solutions and adoption in 2021 will be driven around safety, compliance, asset tracking, logistics, and supply chain adherence and efficiencies. As last year saw major drivers around edge intelligence and computing, this year will revolve around the need to safely get back to business. As such, core IoT applications that support in complying with regulations, keeping workers and operations safe, and leveraging real-time intelligence around key assets including high-value assets where workers may not be present will drive adoption. Supply chain and logistics are key areas to keep an eye on, as businesses require location and asset intelligence from point of production to end-customer delivery (this is more of the same but additional intelligence to remove the human factor will be a driver). In addition, in situations where we seek alternatives to having people working within operations, we may see new applications to provide machine or computer vision and use of AI to further optimize and provide efficiencies of operations, especially in industrial use cases. 
4. Smart City projects will shift around the protection and safety of citizens, the city, buildings and infrastructure…both physical and cybersecurity. City governments have several factors impacting their shift in priorities. One is the hard hit to their budgets, as monies to support worker unemployment, healthcare, monitoring/tracing, and COVID-19 response become financially draining. In addition, automation around city services may be put on hold as cities focus on citizen safety, health and medical adherence, and economic development to fight against the hardships in key industries that may have in the past been major tax contributors to support in city services. The focus on building and infrastructure projects may be pushed to the front of the line of priorities, along with a focus on cybersecurity as recent incidents give rise to the need to protect important government assets.
5. Reliance on mobile, digital, and virtual tools, software and applications will surge in 2021…businesses will seek tools to help automate, offset workforce activities, shift resources to knowledge workers, and further enhance remote and virtual operations…this may include a combination of AI, RPA, business operations mobile apps, and 'as a Service' solutions. Just as we experienced the 2H of 2020, a continued surge in adoption and use of mobile tools, digital applications, and virtual-based software services will continue to be in need. In education, schools will seek better platforms and software to support in remote learning. In businesses, "as a Service" solutions to support in remote workforce operations will drive the business market. In addition, businesses will look to Robotics Process Automation or RPA to shift mundane, repetitive tasks to RPA-driven as the ROI (return on investment) can be achieved in as little as a few weeks and supports in prioritizing workforces to knowledge-based business activities.

Just as in 2020, we will continue to see the realization of 5G use cases in the support of greenfield projects and in areas where hard-wired infrastructure is either time-consuming or cost prohibitive. 5G use cases become real as we see live deployments in and around IoT deployment and in the support of remote operations i.e. oilfield, hazmat, rural, industrial. Lastly, this year will see technologies and solutions coming together...think IoT, AI, machine learning, edge computing. As partnerships were a strong force in 2020, these partnerships will continue to work together to roll-out more comprehensive solutions that resonate with businesses. 

Check out our recent IoT Coffee Talk below, where the IoT Coffee Talk team reflect on 2020 and discuss/share what's to come in 2021. Thanks Leonard Lee for holding us down and Rob Tiffany for having perfect attendance :) Thanks to Marc for bringing the brain and international flare. Thanks to David for keeping it real and sharing the industrial perspective. Thanks to Rick for speaking truth even when it hurts!