1. The Internet of Things Everything: It’s Inevitable
Prof. Thomas H Lee
EngX, 4 Dec. 2014

2. 
4 million cellphones are sold each day.

250,000 text messages are sent each second.
(ITU)
wired-wireless crossover: Dec 2001
We’ve Cut the Cord

3. 
There are now >6 billion mobile subscriptions.
•
There were ~0 in 1981; 20 years later we became a mobile species.
2014: Wireless subscriptions will exceed the earth’s population of 7 billion.
Mobile Miracles

4. 1st Age of Wireless: Station-to-Station
Guglielmo Marconi, c. 1902

Killer app: Maritime comms.
•
Famously enabled rescue of Titanic survivors in 1912.

Station-to-station mode limited to kiloscale.

5. 2nd Age of Wireless: Station-to-People

Expensive transmitters, but cheap receivers. Enables megascale reach and beyond.

Advertising makes startups like NBC/CBS much more valuable than wireless telegraph companies.
iPod, v0.0
E. Howard Armstrong and Marion on honeymoon, Dec. 1923
(Columbia Univ.)
iPod, v0.0

6. 3rd Age of Wireless: People-to-People
(Associated Press)

Rapidly achieved gigascale connectivity.

There are clouds on the horizon, however…

7. Tea Leaves Tell a Tale

Voice-data crossover occurred last year

We are now a mobile digital species.
Voice
Data
Q2 2013
End of the 3rd Age of Wireless

8. The 3rd Age is Long in the Tooth

New-subscription revenues have plummeted, marking the end of a phase of wireless history.

9. 
Adding things to the conversation will take us to the terascale.

It’s not just an Internet of Things, it’s the Internet of Everything (IoE).
•
People-to-people, people-to-things and things-to- things.
•
Wireless and wired.
•
Nets of nets/webs of webs.
The IoE is the 4th Age

10. 
To connect a trillion devices, we first need to design and fab them.

A trillion devices can’t all be battery-powered.

A trillion devices constitute a large “attack surface”.
Many Challenges

11. 
Automated design tools as a “workforce multiplier.”

Field-programmable things arrays (FPTAs) to reduce the number of different chips.

RF-powered modules to supplement energy harvesting.

Low-power configurable security engines.
Possible Solutions

12. No Batteries!
Univ. of Washin
Thing 1 Thing 2
5G tower
iThing

13. To Configure and Control
To Access Content
To Monitor and Alert
To Interact
Examples of Uses for the IoE
Courtesy of Ayla Networks
Smartphones/phablets will be the remote control for your universe.

14. Healthcare Example
Nelvin C. Cepeda, Union-Tribune – March 30, 2009

Patient ingests sensor which beams data to phone, then over network.

Remote monitoring (and even control) is extremely compelling for healthcare.

West Wireless Medicine Institute launched in March 2009 to develop these kinds of technologies.

15. Healthcare Example #2

Future smartphones will have sensor suites to monitor health and communicate results.

Star Trek “Tricorder” is a driving vision for many.

Qualcomm sponsoring $10M prize.

Massive data collects will inform in new and powerful ways, and present compelling business opportunities.
Qualcomm

16. Why Carriers will Embrace the IoE

Many applications served by low data rates.
•
Example:
Home Automation Logic unit says, “I’ve closed the garage door, Dave.”
“Open the garage door, HAL.”
“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that.”

Great value will come from network effects, but not all communications will need to go through basestations.
•
IP-based platforms will dominate, but…
•
Point-to-point technologies (e.g., Bluetooth, NFC) will also be very important.

17. Can the IoE Truly Get Big?

“It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.” – Mark Twain, Niels Bohr, Yogi Berra, etc.
•
High correlation between certainty and foolishness in predictions. Nevertheless…

18. How Big?

The worldwide semiconductor industry generated about $300B in revenues in 2013.

The diet and weight-loss industry is a $60B business in the U.S. alone.

19. IoE: Plenty of Visions and Work to Do
Extremetech
Qualcomm
Cisco

20. “The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.” -- Timbuk3