Taiwan’s largest mobile operator Chunghwa Telecom has recommended that Taiwan and the mainland cooperate to develop a global standard for the Internet of Things (IoT) market, which is still in its infancy.
Chung Fu-kuei, president of Chunghwa’s data communications business, said during the Cross-Strait CEO Summit that the two governments should work to define the standards for IoT, the China Post reported. Chung noted that the “protocols, systems and frameworks are largely unstandardised”.
The Post quoted him as saying: “Standardisation along with the development of core technologies and a common IoT cloud testing lab would help boost industrial exchange between the two sides.”
He suggested the establishment of testing facilities that could be used by both sides.
Any cross-strait effort would certainly be playing catch up with a number of recent IoT standard initiatives around the world.
Last week South Korean operators SK Telecom and LG U+ announced they will make the first commercial IoT deployments based on specifications from oneM2M, a group formed by a number of standards bodies and intended to deliver a scalable and interoperable machine-to-machine framework.
LG U+ reportedly has added oneM2M support to its existing IoT service infrastructure in order to target the international market.
OneM2M was formed in 2012 with the aim of developing a common platform that could be used by service providers across a variety of sectors, including smart grids, connected cars, eHealth, enterprise supply chain, home automation and energy management, and public safety.
The Open Interconnect Consortium was launched in July to drive the development of IoT, offering competition to the existing Qualcomm-led AllSeen Alliance. Intel was part of the consortium, along with Samsung and others.
Earlier this month Intel launched its IoT platform, a reference model designed to unify and simplify connectivity and security for IoT. It also introduced integrated hardware and software products based on the new platform and is partnering with firms like Accenture and Dell to expand the ecosystem of system integrators and move IoT from “infancy to mass deployment”.
Estimates of the potential size of the IoT market differ widely. ABI Research expects the number of wireless connected devices to jump from about 16 billion this year to more than 40 billion in 2020. IDC is forecasting that the global IoT market will expand from $1.9 trillion in 2013 to $7.1 trillion in 2020.
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