Via Geralt
Sprint (S) discussed the future of IoT at the Enterprise IoT Summit last week, and they tell a very compelling story. We have watched the wireless and telecom communications marketplace grow and change, decade after decade. The next wave of transformation has begun, and it’s all around things like IoT, AI, and the cloud.
Let’s take a look at what Sprint is doing in the growing space. This is a robust growth area for large and small business alike, and will continue to grow and change. Masayoshi Son, Chairman of Sprint, sees a growing world full of more than a trillion separate devices connected through the internet or the IoT. That’s one reason he wanted to acquire Sprint. That’s a huge new opportunity for the wireless carrier.
Looking forward, Sprint does see a growing opportunity for the Internet of Things. That means they and every wireless and wire line network must invest in and build out todays networks to handle the larger and different kind of load.
Sprint Has Big Plans for IoT Going Forward
Jan Geldmacher, President of Sprint Business said during his keynote that we should expect data volume to grow 2,500 times todays size. That’s incredible. He says going forward we can learn things based on what we have experienced so far. He said the internet of the 1990’s was a basic bare bones structure, but it still held the basics that we built todays internet on.
If we think the same way with IoT, we are just in the very early stages of what will rapidly grow and change over the next several years. That’s great news for Sprint, but it’s also great news for the entire industry and if we pull the camera back, industry after industry.
IoT will continue to grow and become more important to the economy and in fact our lives going forward. This is an incredible growth opportunity for not only internet networks, but wireless networks, wire line networks, device makers and assorted other industries that will use this new technology.
Expect every industry to jump into the fray in coming years. Today we see healthcare, retail and assorted other industries in this space, but going forward we will see every industry jumping in.
That means there will be incredible growth and incredible confusion as we try to figure out all the coming interoperability issues as technology continues to progress and change. IoT growth in industry after industry will fuel robust growth. That will accelerate the opportunity for every business in the space. Companies that enable connections, make devices and more for consumers and businesses.
Expect Rapid IoT Growth and Transformation
Over the last few decades, we have continued to generate enormous mountains of data. Only recently have we begun to use new technology to help us sort through, find and use data from that mountain. There are enormous opportunities in so many different areas going forward in the world of IoT.
This is the incredible IoT growth opportunity Sprint sees and is talking about going forward. In fact, this is an opportunity for many other companies as well. That means we can expect to see rapid growth from companies in the basics of the industry. This is the early time in this explosive new industry segment. Each new generation of technology is a mixed bag of good and bad. Sprint says now is the time for all these separate players to start working more closely together, and I agree.
Jeff Kagan is an Equities.com columnist. Kagan is a Wireless Analyst, Telecom Analyst, Industry Analyst, speaker and consultant. He follows wireless, wire line, telecom, Internet, cable TV, IPTV, Cloud, Mobile Pay, FinTech and communications technology. Email him at [email protected]. His web site is www.jeffKAGAN.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeffkagan
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