The internet of things: An Indian outlook

Abstract

IoT or Internet of Things is a phrase coined to define a system of interrelated physical devices embedded with sensors and network connectivity that enable them to collect, process and exchange data. In 2013 the Global Standards Initiative on Internet of Things (IoT-GSI) defined the IoT as "the infrastructure of the information society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things based on existing and evolving interoperable information and communication technologies” (ITU, 2015). While machine-to-machine (M2M) communication already existed, IoT goes beyond it by offering advanced connectivity covering a variety of domains, protocols and applications. “Things” in IoT can refer to a wide variety of devices like heart monitoring implants, weather monitoring sensors, biochip transponders, home appliances connected to the internet, automobiles with sensors or any other object with an IP address assigned to it and the ability to transfer data over a network. The convergence of wireless technologies, microelectromechanical systems and the internet has broken down the wall between operational technology and information technology allowing unstructured data generated by machines to be transmitted over a network and then analysed (Rouse, 2015). The presence of the IPv6 addressing scheme has allowed a manifold increase in the number of devices that can be connected to the internet and this has in turn facilitated the full-scale adoption of IoT. According to Gartner IoT will consist of 20 billion objects by 2020 which will amount to about 3 devices per person on earth, thus highlighting the sheer scale (Gartner, 2015).