"The Internet of Things" and Unlicensed White Space Spectrum

06-14-2011 • electronicsweekly.com

This 'Internet of Things' notion reared its head again yesterday with the announcement by CSR co-founder James Collier's new start-up Neul that it was launching a radio system to use unlicensed white space spectrum. One of the applications was said to be this Internet of Things, sometimes called Machine-to-Machine (MJ2M) communications, or 'The Internet of Everything.' The Neul press release stated: 'There are already over 200 million M2M devices and this number is rising with a 23% Compound Annual Growth Rate. But the M2M market is set to explode, with applications such as in-car navigation, telematics, retail Electronic Point-of-Sale (EPOS) and others. The number of connected devices is expected to reach 50 Billion by 2020.' Another proponent of this Internet of Things idea is the CEO of Qualcomm, Paul Jacobs. "Sensors are going to be on your body, they're going to be in the environment around you. You'll go and step on the scale and the scale will automatically talk to your phone and keep track of your health," Jacobs told the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Running shoes, blood glucose monitors, sticking plaster will have chips and sensors that transmit information.