LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE 360 LATIN AMERICA, MEXICO: Applications are the most valuable part of the IoT ecosystem, and will be the point at which success and failure are defined, Dimitri Diliani, head of Latin America for Nokia, claimed.

“If you can get the applications going, you can provide value to the end user, to the consumer, and that’s what’s going to make this thing successful. It’s not going to be the network, and it’s not going to be the devices,” he said.

There is good news for operators, as “we see a good chunk of the value coming from the connectivity piece,” the executive said.

Diliani was less bullish about IoT devices, which he described as “very challenging,” due to the low cost of the products.

“It’s not the iPhone selling at $800 that’s going to make IoT grow, it’s going to be the devices and sensors that are sub-$10,” he said. “The economic value in that segment is going to be fairly modest, because of the pressure on prices and the requirements to start from zero, while with the networks, of course, we are evolving the networks we have.”

Ecosystem
And there is also a role for someone to bring everything together, “a system integrator that is going to come and make this ecosystem work together perfectly”.

In order for IoT to thrive, all aspects of the ecosystem need to be healthy.

“We’re not doing this for fun. Of course, you want to help society, to help people, but there has to be an economic value for the entire supply chain to work and be successful,” the executive said.