Developments on the IoT Front

Two distinct items came across my desk recently both impacting the nascent Internet of Things (IoT) market. First at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced plans for the development of a new Wi-Fi radio link designed primarily for IoT applications. The other was a front page story in the Wall Street Journal dealing with the challenges insurers are having getting customers to adopt one of the pioneering IoT applications, in-car sensors that would allow them to monitor driving behavior. First, let’s look at the Wi-Fi announcement.

Dubbed “HaLow” (pronounced “HAY-low”), the new standard is officially designated IEEE 802.11ah. The big change is that while it will operate in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, HaLow devices will also operate in the older 900 MHz band. As many of the devices envisioned for IoT will be mobile (and no one is in a hurry to be running wires to the rest of them), wireless is considered to be the primary transmission technology that will be employed.

Wi-Fi is already playing a role in IoT, primarily in smart home products like Nest thermostats and Belkin WeMo devices as consumers will likely already have Wi-Fi in the home and where the limited transmission range will still fulfill the need. However, for wide area IoT initiatives, only cellular data (or some proprietary technology like we see in wireless meter reading) meet the requirement.

With the lower frequency, 900 MHz operates over roughly twice the range of 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi at the same transmit power; some estimates peg the transmission range at up to 1 Km. 900 MHz also delivers better wall penetration and more efficient battery draw. The 900 MHz band was one of the first unlicensed bands to be opened and was used with the first generation cordless phones and baby monitors. The problem is that there’s not much 900 MHz bandwidth available.

The 900 MHz band runs from 900 to 928 MHz, providing a total bandwidth of only 28 MHz. A standard Wi-Fi radio channel takes 20 MHz, and the newer 802.11n and ac support channel sizes from 20 MHz to 160 MHz. With only 28 MHz. available, you are only getting one standard Wi-Fi channel out of the entire 900 MHz band.

Fortunately, most IoT applications don’t call for a lot of transmission capacity; many of the applications currently under discussion are more akin to traditional SCADA applications. The Alliances says that the standard will eventually support data rates up to 18 Mbps, but the rates as low as 150 Kbps can be supported in a 1 MHz channel. The 18 Mbps data rate would require a 4 MHz channel and the Wi-Fi Alliance says that data rates up to 78 Mbps could be possible using a 16 Mhz channel; only one of those could be supported in the 900 MHz band. However, those 78 Mbps channels could be supported on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz home networks where range isn’t the primary consideration. The initial standard will address channel sizes up to 4 MHz, and initial certifications aren’t planned until 2018, so there’s plenty of time to get ready.

The Wall Street Journal article looked at the challenges of getting new IoT innovations adopted. Titled “Car Insurers Find Tracking Devices Are a Tough Sell,” describing the trials and tribulations of programs like Progressive’s Snapshot®. Allstate Corp. and State Farm have similar offers that promote installing plug-in devices and/or smartphone applications that allow the insurance companies to monitor driving behavior with the potential enticement of lower insurance rates. Anyone who has ever driven with me will know that I am not one of the drivers likely to benefit from this type of program.

They have learned some interesting things, like drivers who slam on brakes more than eight times per 500 miles are 73% more likely to get into an accident in a given year. They have also learned that a significant percentage of drivers seem to feel this is an invasion of their privacy. However, given that most people have fairly consistent driving patterns, Progressive has found that they can glean much of the necessary information from a relatively short six-month assessment period, hence the product name “Snapshot.”

Progressive has also found that it needed a privacy policy covering Snapshot data. Among the stipulations of the policy is that Progressive won’t sell personally identifiable data to third parties, and it won’t share the data with any third parties “unless it’s necessary or appropriate to service your insurance policy, detect or prevent fraud, perform research, or comply with the law,” such as in response to a subpoena in a civil lawsuit or by police when investigating the cause of an accident.

So while wireless technology continues to improve and allows the creation of countless services people quickly adopt and soon find indispensible, IoT is taking us into new and uncharted waters. The technology is intriguing to be sure, but the real challenge will be navigating the social rules that will define where consumers draw the line between convenience and intrusion. And we may find that the data collected by some of these solutions may be subject to subpoena. Hmmm- I think I’ll pass on that.