Through the Industrial Internet of Things, industrial computer companies can provide new services, improve products and enter new markets to achieve industrial upgrading. And even companies that don't sell products, such as virtual imaging companies, can take advantage of this opportunity to expand into digital services.
The Internet of Things really starts when equipment suppliers, chip vendors, telecom operators, and IoT application providers all say they are ready to market their products.
"Companies have finally started experimenting and piloting IoT solutions," said Hong Guanzhong, managing director of Accenture's Greater China mobile technology and IoT business leader, in an interview with Caijing Daily. "In 2016, a large number of IoT-based projects will be Fast-track to commercial rollout, and never-before-seen business models and services will emerge.”
In previous years, the Internet of Things part of the World Mobile Communication Exhibition (MWC) was more of the technology display of all parties in the industry chain. The Barcelona reporting team of "Financial Daily" saw at the MWC2016 site that IoT products are emerging in large numbers at this exhibition that showcases I.T's forward-looking technologies and products.
Connectivity will not only be greatly extended in personal smart devices, but more importantly, it will drive industrial interconnection, greatly change current products and services in the fields of industry, agriculture, and transportation, and bring new business models.
IoT product landing
On February 23, Ericsson announced at MWC2016 that it will carry out a comprehensive cooperation with Geely Auto to manage the "Internet cars" of different platforms, brands and models under Geely Auto Group with one platform. "CVC") all core functionality.
The difference from moving the Internet to the car before is that the real "Internet of Vehicles" needs to solve the connection and data exchange between cars, between cars and the surrounding pedestrians, and the environment, so as to realize the intelligentization of cars. The cooperation between the two parties makes the initial interaction possible: in terms of safety, the car can sense the danger of slipping and automatically issue an alarm, which can realize automatic monitoring of vehicle fuel consumption and operating data, and even feel that it is “uncomfortable” and automatically 4S shop or designated maintenance station to make an appointment for maintenance.
Huawei predicts that by 2025, there will be 4 billion new broadband users in the world, and more than 100 billion things will be connected, which is more than 100 times the current number of connections, and the traffic consumed by each person will also increase by more than 500 times. Shang Bing, chairman of China Mobile, also said at the GSMA conference in Barcelona that according to relevant forecasts, the number of connections in the global market will reach 50 billion in 2020, and the number of connections in the Chinese market is expected to exceed 10 billion.
Part of the newly added connections come from the extension of personal smart devices from mobile phones to smart wearable devices and smart home devices. The vast majority of new connections come from M2M (machine-to-machine) and thing-to-thing connections.
As early as 2013, Michelin Tire will add sensing equipment to engines and tires to collect data on fuel consumption, tire pressure and temperature, vehicle speed, and location, and transmit it to the cloud, where it can be analyzed and sent to fleet managers. propose. Taleris, a subsidiary of GE, provides fleet optimization services for more than 30 aviation companies around the world. It implements comprehensive monitoring of aircraft components and systems through sensing equipment, and has an analysis team to track aircraft engineering systems and overall operations to analyze abnormalities. The root cause of the phenomenon determines when parts should be replaced or repaired.
What is "Internet of Everything"? Intel has launched a temperature-sensing porcelain cup; Ericsson even believes that paper and glass windows can be connected to the Internet, and some of its networked devices have been applied to the industrial field, such as remotely operating a robotic arm to complete the task of assembling screws. At the Huawei booth at MWC2016, Huawei and its partners brought networked trash cans and dog rings.
The power of evolution
As early as a few years ago, the concept of "Internet of Things" was hot for a while, and then disappeared. In the era when 3G just started and the network just extended from PC to smartphone, it seems too far to talk about "Internet of Everything". Although Intel has already established an embedded business unit to provide embedded chips to the industrial control field, the wireless connection technology is not mature at this time.
The real start lies in 4G. Compared with 3G, the theoretical peak rate of 4G mobile network has increased by more than 10 times, and high-speed data transmission is possible. The imagination of "Internet of Everything" is opened with 5G. The EU established the METIS project led by Ericsson, and in 2013, China established the IMT2020 (5G) promotion group.
Regarding the 5G vision, various parties have different expressions but the meaning is similar. The IMT2020 (5G) promotion group proposed that fiber-like access rates, zero-latency user experience, connection capability of hundreds of billions of devices, ultra-high traffic density, ultra-high connection density, and ultra-high mobility, etc. Consistent service.
Global wireless and communication equipment suppliers such as Ericsson, Huawei, ZTE, etc., started research on 5G before the 2020 ICT development goals were formulated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) at the International Plenipotentiary Conference in 2014, and launched corresponding early Equipment, only from the peak transmission rate comparison, if the evolution of 4G to 3G is an improvement, and the evolution of 5G to 4G, its improvement is a revolution that reaches the level of qualitative change. Although manufacturers put forward the concept of 4G+ to bridge the gap in the middle.
Compared with the mobile communication technology evolving from 4G to 5G, it is necessary to gradually realize the connection and data interaction between smart devices with revolutionary faster speed and lower delay, such as intelligent transportation, with higher reliability and low power consumption. The connection of industries, buildings, etc., supports massive data bursts with super network capacity.
The industry generally believes that 5G will be realized around 2020. However, this does not affect wireless and communication equipment manufacturers who want to realize the commercial benefits of technology research and development to promote their 4G+ or Pre5G technical solutions to operators, and apply 5G or quasi-5G technologies in their eyes, such as 3D-MIMO and CA, to improve existing 4G The internet. Although, the standardization work for 5G by the international standards organization 3GPP has just started.
The true "Internet of Everything" was originally prepared for 5G, but it was unexpectedly "premature" during the evolution from 4G to 4G+.
China, which hopes to lead the global wireless communication technology standard in the 5G era, will become the world's fastest-growing and most active 5G research and development supporter. Chinese operators have actually undertaken a considerable responsibility for network deployment. In 2014 and 2015, Chinese operators whose revenue and profit growth tended to stagnate or even decline, invested more than 100 billion yuan in network construction each year. They must upgrade their networks, in addition to responsibility and mission, because whoever falls behind may lose competitiveness.
As for the chip maker, Intel, which established the Embedded Business Unit many years ago, has renamed the unit the IoT Business Unit. This division is one of the fastest growing of Intel's divisions.
In 2014, when this reporter interviewed the executives of three equipment manufacturers (Huawei, Ericsson, and ZTE), these companies had just put forward their 5G vision. Although they have all developed 5G base station verification equipment, what is 5G technology and what can 5G do? , opinions are not unified. However, CA, 3D-MIMO, etc. have reached consensus on the promotion of 5G technology, and persuaded global operators, especially Chinese operators with rapid 4G development, to deploy 4G+ and 4G+ networks, which has become the premise of the budding Internet of Things.
Chip companies such as Intel and Qualcomm also agreed with the concept of 4G+ and the Internet of Everything, and quickly launched their chips and convenient development platforms. Now, they only need the cooperation of more application manufacturers such as Geely Automobile and Michelin.
What has changed?
From now on, people have to prepare new products and business models under new technologies, and let their imaginations go.
Now, we have smartphones and immature smart watches, but today's mobile phones and smart watches cannot fully adapt to the IoT environment. They need to have a clearer positioning to adapt to the rapid growth of data traffic and network connection speed every year. Data shows that in 2015, China's data traffic consumption more than doubled; due to the rapid deployment of 4G+, the speed of mobile network connections in China is expected to reach more than three times that at the beginning of 4G implementation within two years.
Artificial intelligence will develop rapidly. Japan hopes that humanoid answering robots can be admitted to the University of Tokyo in 2021, and an artificial intelligence plan in China also allows humanoid answering robots to be admitted to a university within 3 to 5 years. Liu Qingfeng, chairman of iFLYTEK, once predicted that in 3 to 5 years, robots may enter the home and perform service work such as serving tea and pouring water.
The industrial Internet of Things, which has a larger imagination space for industrial computers, will not only help enterprises improve productivity and efficiency, but also may bring about brand-new markets and business models.
“Through the Industrial Internet of Things, companies can provide new services, improve products and enter new markets, and achieve industrial upgrading. Even those companies that do not sell products, such as virtual imaging companies, can take advantage of this opportunity to expand their business. to the field of digital services.” The above report pointed out.
“In order to increase revenue, industrial companies supplement product sales with service sales. This 'product + service' hybrid business model, by combining product sales and leasing, enables companies to use digital services for recurring revenue, thereby expanding new revenue streams,” said Wu Lineng, managing director of Accenture Digital Technology Services Greater China.
Industrial computer "China's 'Internet +'" strategy will give birth to emerging formats such as sharing economy, smart manufacturing, and smart home, which will create huge demand for information consumption. For operators, mobile video, medical, education, finance and other emerging services The strong demand will not only drive the rapid growth of traffic, but also bring about a broad market for digital services.”
