LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE 360 SERIES – RUSSIA & CIS, MOSCOW: Security concerns, uncertainty on return on investment and the need to reorganise internal processes were cited by Nadezhda Shevtsova, new business director at Tele2 Russia (pictured), as barriers preventing IoT adoption.

Speaking in an IoT session (watch a replay below), the executive revealed the results of an operator review of businesses’ attitudes towards IoT across several sectors in Russia which found “major factors” hampering uptake.

“The major hindering factor comes from the high cost of investment,” she said. “This is a barrier because heads of companies are not sure what the payback would be on that innovation investment.”

She noted some companies were concerned about the need to retrain staff on using the new technology while others cited security issues.

However, Shevtsova pointed to some industries in the country where IoT was being enthusiastically adopted, for example the marine agriculture sector in East Russia where the operator has a number of projects ongoing.

Her comments came during a session discussing the potential, use cases and potential problems surrounding IoT rollout in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Operator deployments
Later in the discussion Christian Laque, senior director for technology at Belarus operator Velcom, noted an excellent example of IoT usage could be found within mobile networks themselves: the use of information on network performance being garnered from handsets themselves, essentially creating a large data-collecting IoT network to improve service.

As a result, he noted: “We have increased the quality of the network dramatically and in reality we transport far more data with the same number of sites just by knowing what’s going on.”

Laque added similar methods could be used in a number of verticals such as transport.

City of Moscow deputy CIO Alexander Gorbatko said a number of IoT deployments were already being used successfully in urban areas. Moscow, he added, had a 2030 smart city plan in place to further expand use cases.

Gorbatko pointed towards the use of mobile networks to connect 167,000 security cameras around the city. Through public private partnerships it has also deployed a system tracking cleaning trucks and other public utility optimisation initiatives.

He also backed the technology for future use in healthcare, education and in improving power utilities.