The Wireless IoT Forum was launched today with a brief to support and promote the deployment of IoT worldwide, in both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, and diminish the risk of fragmented standards.

Although the Forum has yet to announce its founding members – it will do so at the M2M World Congress held in London on 28 April – Will Franks was unveiled as Chairman and William Webb as CEO.

Franks was previously CTO and founder of Ubiquisys, the small cell vendor acquired by Cisco for $310 million. Webb currently holds the position of president of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and has also held senior positions with Ofcom.

“The wireless Internet of Things is bringing connectivity and control to an order of magnitude more devices, however there is a very real risk of fragmented standards and technologies holding back the development of the market,” said Webb.

“There has also been a tremendous amount of work done in the IoT world across a wide range of technologies. As in the cellular world, the success of this will lie in the promotion of open standards. The Forum will work tirelessly to make this a reality in the IoT world.”

In a statement, the Forum said it would “work with key stakeholders from across the value chain to agree requirements that inform and accelerate standards development and deployments”.

It also added it was “actively recruiting” new members.