TLDR:
- Interoperability is key
- TCP/IP is not an option.
- Municipalities MUST invest in truely open systems (no part can be patented)
- Constrained low-power battery-driven devices are hard to support
- Open system allows third-parties to innovate
Link to paper: https://cloud.aernetworks.com/s/4STReMBdYET96rr
Quote:
Interoperability and Open Standard Development
With the popularity of IoT devices, many IoT protocols and standards have been developed. In contrast to ordinary computers, IoT devices are normally constrained when it comes to memory space and processing capacity. In addition, IoT devices might be deployed where there’s limited or no access to continuous power supply, which means that they need to operate under power supplied from batteries or small solar panels. As a consequence, power-efficient communication protocols with small memory footprints and limited demands on processing have been developed to support IoT devices. Traditional TCP/IP protocols haven’t been designed with these requirements in mind.
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Standard protocols are important to guarantee interoperability of different IoT devices.
However, using open standards doesn’t automatically result in open systems. In our context, an open system means an integrated open IoT infrastructure solution for smart cities, providing access to open data and APIs for cloud services. In many cities, that infrastructure will be paid for, at least in part, by the city authorities using public funding. To motivate this investment, and get the most benefit for society, we argue that any smart city IoT infrastructure needs to be a truly open system, where equipment from many vendors can be used, and where the generated data can be more or less freely used by anyone to develop new services, based on low-level as well as processed sensor and IoT data. This kind of system will maximize innovation in the IoT domain, much as the Internet has done for information and communication services. Many current IoT systems — for example, for air quality monitoring or the smart home — are either incomplete systems with limited functionalities (that is, in terms of sensing, storage, and analytics), or are closed, proprietary systems dedicated for a particular task. The latter are vertically integrated systems, sometimes called stove pipes or vertical silos, which can’t be combined or extended easily with third-party components or services. The result is that once invested in a particular system, you’re locked into that vendor’s system. Vertically integrated systems are particularly problematic for the public sector, because this prevents fair competition in public procurement and is less suitable for large-scale data sharing.
Patrik Fältström (7) argues similarly that market forces work against open interoperability, specially in the IoT domain where, for example, a smart lighting system from one vendor only works with light bulbs from the same vendor. Systems are designed as end-to-cloud-to-end, where the cloud part is vendor-controlled with limited possibilities for third parties, and where the IoT devices often speak proprietary protocols to the cloud. Fältström argues that this lack of interoperability severely limits the market growth (for example, with smart light bulbs). Also, the dependence on a cloud service might render the device non-functional, should that cloud service for any reason, temporarily or permanently, disappear.
Instead of these stove pipes, we need horizontally designed systems with well-defined interfaces and data formats that can unleash the potential of open data, and that enable third parties to independently develop new applications and services, possibly combining several data sources. Providing open data has huge potential for innovation in digital applications and services, resulting in very large economic values. These interfaces (APIs) through which the IoT data can be accessed at multiple levels of refinement — from raw data directly from sensors, to highly processed data — also need standardization. The challenge is to provide an open system that lets users access the open data and cloud services without being locked by a particular platform. The open system should also allow third-parties to innovate based on the open data and open APIs.