28 Jan 2016 - The second edition of the International Telecommunication Union Standardisation Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 20 (SG20) meeting on “Internet of Things (IoT) and its Applications including Smart Cities and Communities (SC&C)” – held at the Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre from 18 to 26 January 2016 – concluded successfully on Tuesday, 26 January, with significant inroads made in the development of international IoT standards.
Singapore, 28 January 2016 | For Immediate Release
The second edition of the International Telecommunication Union Standardisation Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 20 (SG20) meeting on “Internet of Things (IoT) and its Applications including Smart Cities and Communities (SC&C)” – held at the Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre from 18 to 26 January 2016 – concluded successfully on Tuesday, 26 January, with significant inroads made in the development of international IoT standards.
Hosted by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the meeting saw about 180 active participants from over 20 ITU’s Member States and more than 30 organisations hold fruitful discussions on IoT standardisation areas such as IoT devices and network requirements, interworking of IoT applications and services, signalling requirements for Next Generation Networks (NGN) evolution to IoT, and telecommunication systems infrastructure in smart sustainable cities.
Key Outcomes and Recommendations
A significant outcome of the meeting was consent on two proposed key ITU-T Recommendations, i.e. “Common requirements and capabilities of device management in IoT” and “Requirements of the smartphone as a sink node for IoT applications and services”. These ITU-T Recommendations, if adopted, may help governments and industries to take a bigger stride towards developing international IoT standards in the near future.
ITU-T Recommendation: “Common requirements and capabilities of device management in the Internet of Things”
IoT devices/applications have to be correctly configured before they can operate efficiently through standardised interfaces and procedures. The first recommendation identified common parameters for remote activation, diagnostic, software upgrade and security management, allowing a simpler and more efficient way to manage IoT devices/applications. This could pave the way for providing a common set of standards to facilitate the fast deployment of machine-to-machine (M2M) and IoT communications on a vast variety of devices.
ITU-T Recommendation: “Requirements of the smartphone as sink node for IoT applications and services”
With the proliferation and popularity of smartphones globally, the ITU-T SG20 recommended the requirements of the smartphone to act as a gathering point to collect IoT data such as monitored health parameters, device status, video and audio feeds. This is possible as smartphones can provide Internet connectivity for devices such as wearables and home monitoring devices. With its powerful computing, communicating and storage capacities, it is anticipated that the smartphone will be a key device in the IoT world. This recommendation could potentially enable smart healthcare initiatives, such as tele-health or health monitoring on the go.
Globally, governments and businesses have been looking to harness the opportunities and potential offered by IoT. It is projected that there will be 50 billion devices connected to the Internet by 20201 , and IoT services spending is also projected to top US$235 billion worldwide this year, up 22 per cent from 20152. In Singapore, IoT will be a critical cornerstone for many of its Smart Nation initiatives such as Smart Homes, Smart Urban Habitat, Autonomous Vehicles, and even Digital Healthcare wearables. In hosting the ITU-T SG20 meeting, Singapore hopes to facilitate the development of interoperable IoT standards locally and internationally.
The ITU-T SG20 was established to study and develop international standards to enable the coordinated development of IoT technologies and their applications for smart cities and communities. An important aspect of the ITU-T SG20’s work is the development of standards that leverage IoT technologies to address urban development challenges.
The next ITU-T SG20 meeting is expected to be held from 25 July to 5 August 2016 in Geneva.
1www.cisco.com/web/about/ac79/docs/innov/IoT_IBSG_0411FINAL.pdf
2www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3165317
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