Airtel — Enabling IoT for Enterprises and Customers
IoT in India
IoT is expected to expand rapidly in India over the coming years because of a unique convergence — widespread wireless Internet availability, vast startup ecosystem and Government’s intent towards rapid digitisation. India will unleash a new dimension of services that improve the quality of life for consumers and citizens, productivity improvements and new revenue streams for large enterprises and SMEs.
Airtel is a pioneer in enabling digital lives for ~400 million people and various large and medium Enterprises in 16 countries. With the wide span coverage of 2G, 3G, LTE, Fibre and Satellite and the advent of revolutionary connectivity technologies like NB-IoT, LTE-M, LoRA and 5G knocking the door, the time is apt for makers, startups and telcos like Airtel to lay the foundation for the next revolution i.e — connecting things.
IoT — Layered Reference Model
As we all understand, the Internet of Things (IoT) refers to connecting the devices to the cloud and deriving meaningful insights from the data and build vertical applications to cater to the use-case, but what are the various enabling technology layers ? how the End to End IoT ecosystem works ? Following model (Figure-1) is a depiction of the various layers (bottoms up) enabling IoT:
Devices & Gateways— The bottom most layer of Sensors connected to the things are the source of data in the IoT ecosystem, they convert some physical phenomenon (e.g. heating up) into an electrical impulse that can then be interpreted to determine a reading (e.g. temperature). SoC/Micro-controller connected to sensors, collect data from sensors, have applications running to send data (sensor to cloud) and receive data (cloud to actuator) via the communication modules over short range protocols such as Bluetooth, Z-wave, ZigBee send the data to the gateways. These gateways can be backhauled by wi-fi, ethernet, fibre or 4G to send data from devices to the cloud. There is also a possibility that these end devices are capable of communicating over long range communication technologies like 2G, 3G, 4G, NB-IoT, LTE-M to send data directly to the cloud.
Connectivity: The “I” in IoT — Secure, SLA driven, always on and available connectivity such as 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, Wired, Satellite is needed in order to send the data from sensors & devices often located at remote locations such as oil rigs, manufacturing plants or cars on road. The telcos play a major role in providing this connectivity.
Connectivity Management Platform (CMP)—In addition to the connectivity. Enterprises also need Connectivity Management Platform to be able to easily self manage the connectivity (SIMs & eSIMs) for the IoT Devices. Airtel offers a comprehensive CMP to the enterprises where ordering connectivity, changing plans, managing devices, network diagnostics and many more connectivity management features are just a click away!
Device & Data Management Platform (DMP) — Once these millions of devices on field are connected to the cloud/data centre via internet/lease lines, they start sending huge Volumes and Variety of Data with unprecedented Velocity coming at Variable intervals. To handle these 4Vs of IoT Data — Enterprises & SMEs need a secure cloud which can provide seamless device on-boarding, capability to handle various connectivity protocols, data collection, storage and analytics capabilities.
Vertical Applications Layer: IoT is not just a technology fantasy but an enabler to solve real business and customer problems. This layer is where the maximum domain expertise & partnerships takes place and where the various business vertical applications will be residing, all the underlying layers are enablers to this layer.
Technologies @Airtel — IoT
We at Airtel are working & partnering across all these layers and are driving a micro-services oriented, cloud native applications architecture for IoT platforms (CMP & DMP). Some of the engineering tools which we are using are as follows (Figure-2):
If you are a IoT startup, technology solution provider, device manufacturer or a developer excited about IoT and all things digital, wanting to work in an open environment — reach out to us!
