By: Jim Schakenbach

In addition to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) announcing that union members had ratified the tentative agreements that were reached in May with Verizon, the news this month was filled with every kind of story related to the Internet of Things (IoT).  

The latest edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report revealed that the Internet of Things is set to overtake mobile phones as the largest category of connected devices by 2018. Between 2015 and 2021, the number of IoT connected devices is expected to grow 23 percent annually, of which cellular IoT is forecast to have the highest growth rate. Of the 28 billion total devices that will be connected by 2021, close to 16 billion will be IoT devices. 

SIGFOX continues to expand its global IoT network, this month adding Finland and Ireland to its portfolio of connected countries. The French IoT connectivity provider and Connected Finland today announced that 85 percent of Finland will be added to SIGFOX's global Internet-of-Things networks by spring 2017, making it the 19th country to join the network.

SIGFOX and Irish telecom provider VT Networks announced the completion of a IoT network in just eight months, making Ireland the sixth European country to complete full SIGFOX network coverage. Registering more than 7 million devices in its network with a footprint on all continents, in the past 12 months alone, SIGFOX has added 14 countries to its global coverage map.

To ensure that everything runs smoothly over the IoT, Advantech B+B SmartWorx, Connect2 Systems, and DevicePilot this month held the first demonstration of open standards-based, end-to-end IoT device management built using commercially-available technology and industrial IoT devices. The three Internet companies demonstrated the first end-to-end IoT ecosystem designed with re-usable infrastructure and open industry standards for industrial and commercial applications at scale. 

As increasing numbers of companies develop more devices to run over the IoT, AT&T and Winstron NeWeb Corp announced they are introducing a new set of LTE modules certified to run on AT&T's 4G LTE Network. The new modules will enable companies to deploy a wide range of IoT solutions more efficiently and upgrade to Cat-M1.

To help keep the rapidly expanding global IoT safe and secure, F5 Networks announced a new firewall solution to protect service provider networks at the lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The new firewall will also help providers future-proof their networks as they transition from 4G to 5G and NFV. The high performance and scalable carrier-class firewall solution is designed to deliver end-to-end security across service provider networks and address concerns around IoT growth, migration to 5G and NFV networks, as well as increased security vulnerabilities affecting devices, networks, and applications.

Network security and protection

Networks and the devices that run over them are growing increasingly complex and the traffic flowing through them more crucial for business as well as daily living. As a result, concern about network and data security and new product introductions to address it are keeping pace.

Mobile network security provider AdaptiveMobile this month announced new SS7 GSMA Cat 3 threat detection technology based on continuous real world data analysis from across five continents. The company’s advanced SS7 “Cat 3” detection capabilities includes Network Memory, Location Plausibility, and Remote Intercept as part of its Signaling Protection features.

In fact, a significant increase in global traffic encryption has caused network intelligence solutions provider Procera to announce this month that it has now topped 100 million licenses for its software that helps network operators identify the application or service behind encrypted data traffic. The company's ContentLogic traffic identification software is now being used by more than 40 mainstream customers around the world after being deployed across large fixed, mobile, Wi-Fi, and higher education networks.