The Wireless IoT Forum officially launched at the end of March to support and promote the creation and deployment of open standards for the Internet of Things worldwide. The Forum will support the deployment of wireless wide-area networking technologies in both licensed and unlicensed spectrum.
The organization will provide a place for companies to participate in the creation of uniform standards and deployments for the IoT ecosystem. Members will include fixed and wireless network operators, infrastructure providers, app developers in utilities, government and specialist SMEs, semiconductor vendors, radio technology providers, module developers, systems integrators and vertical end-users.
The Wireless IoT Forum’s primary focus will be on:
- Coordination: Mobilize an end-user, operator- and vendor-inclusive ecosystem driving the coordination, promotion, and deployment of both licensed and unlicensed low-power wireless IoT technology.
- Legitimacy & Momentum: Legitimize the market and drive momentum by creating a coordinated industry eco-system of partners and competitors to enable economies of scale; multi-sourcing; and a collective view of market & business drivers and the technology needed to deliver it.
- Fragmented standards: Gather and agree requirements to drive interoperability and scale. For the unlicensed spectrum the organization will work to drive one industry standard – currently Weightless, ETSI LTN and proprietary solutions like LoRA. For the licensed spectrum it will work to align common layers with unlicensed to enable a global ecosystem.