🌐Too much diversity of technologies

The number of connected objects is exploding. It is estimated that there will be 75 billion IoT devices by 2025, compared with just 15 billion in 2020. This multiplication is accompanied by a great diversification in the connectivity technologies used. Each protocol has its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of range, energy consumption, throughput, quality of service and so on. Major technologies include:

• 5G, which offers very high throughput over short distances, up to 10 Gbit/s. Suitable for uses requiring large data flows, such as video.

• NB-IoT/LTE M, a low-speed LPWAN cellular technology (250 kbit/s), the little sister of 4G, dedicated to IoT.

• LoRaWAN/SIGFOX, a low-frequency, non-cellular LPWAN technology, enabling exchanges over several kilometers and whose the size of messages sent does not exceed a few bytes or ten bytes.

• Bluetooth Low Energy, for indoor connected objects with a range of a few dozen meters. Suitable for wearables, home automation, etc.

• Wi-Fi, for bandwidth-hungry indoor applications such as home automation and Industry 4.0.

No single technology covers all applications. Hence the coexistence of all these standards within the IoT, and often within the same object, which complicates the identification of objects, their industrialization and the aggregation of data from different technological channels.