London, July 24, 2014: United Kingdom’s communications regulator Ofcom has today called for members of the public to send in their inpust on how to harness the Internet of Things (IoT).
The watchdog body wrote in the introductory paper – Promoting Investments and Innovation in the Internet of Things – In particular, we would like to form a more detailed view on the following points:
We are interested in stakeholders’ views on the nature of Ofcom’s role. Generally, our view is that industry is best placed to drive the development, standardisation and commercialisation of new technology. However, given the potential for significant benefits from the development of the IoT across a range of industry sectors, we are interested in views on whether we should be more proactive; for example, in identifying and making available key frequency bands, or in helping to drive technical standards.
Ofcom has explained in its note that radio spectrum was all set to play an important role in enabling the IoT, given the need to support a potentially significant number of wireless connections. Hence, it was seeking input on the scale and nature of demand for spectrum, including how much additional spectrum may be required to support the IoT, if any; which frequency bands may be suitable; and whether an approach based on licensed or licence exempt access to spectrum is more appropriate;
The UK regulator also said the IoT had the potential to raise a number of other policy issues in which it had a role. “Some IoT applications will require highly robust and reliable networks and we are therefore interested in understanding more about issues relating to network resilience and security,” it said.
The agency made it clear that privacy was a key area to be addressed. It said a specific and important aspect of network security was privacy of personal or commercially sensitive data; there will likely be a number of privacy issues and the IoT will only flourish if these were addressed.
Image Credit: Ofcom
– Advertising Message –