While everyone looks to emerging markets to drive the next wave of users, one often overlooked area of demand is from non-human devices like machines, sensors and RFID tags. Demand should be significant, according to participants in a forum session yesterday entitled 'The Internet of things.'
Bill Barney, CEO of Asia Netcom, said that RFID and new Internet-enabled devices are demanding bandwidth, and this trend is expected to increase rapidly in the next 18-24 months.
'You've got a huge amount of capacity being consumed,' Barney said, adding that it was on submarine capacity (such as that provided by Asia Netcom) as well as on terrestrial and access networks.
Bill Brownell, VP, service provider practice, Cisco Systems, described the 'Internet of things' as an extension of the Internet that includes machine-to-machine services as well as machine-to-human services.
'It's a new phase of Internet development and it's developing in a number of discreet business segments,' Brownell said, noting that areas fueling demand included retail, health care, government, manufacturing and building-control.
He also noted that it was a new opportunity for operators: 'It's a $10 billion market and over half of [that] is services, so it's an area that service providers can benefit from.'
He advised carriers that they need the right platform and the ability to reach a diverse range of business segments, and also suggested that service providers should prepare by using machine-to-machine services in their own businesses.
Sun Microsystems sees Java technology as a key piece in extending the Internet beyond the service provider to the edges of the network and the growing range of devices.
'This isn't a vision or science fiction, it's happening today,' noted Darrell Jordan-Smith,' VP, communications industry group, Sun.