FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
10 meters. A common wireless PAN is a smartphone connected over Bluetooth to handful of accessories. Wireless PAN devices usually have low radio transmission power and run over small batteries.
Local Area Networks are either wired or wireless or a combination of both. Wireless LANs usually cover a range up to 100 meters. An example is the home Wi-Fi network providing Internet access to personal computers, smartphones, TVs and household IoT devices.
Neighborhood Area Networks are usually wireless enabled and can reach around 25 km. They use high power levels but transfer relatively low data blocks. An example of Neighborhood Area Network is a smart grid wireless network used to transfer data from home utility meters to the utility company using a selected frequency.
Wide Area Networks are spread across a very large area and can be as big as the world like the Internet.
Interoperability standards One of the biggest challenges across IoT devices, sensors, networks and applications is the ability to understand and to communicate with each other. This is also called interoperability. A number of institutions, alliances, and forums have taken the lead in moving related industries forward in a cohesive manner.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has contributed to the IEEE 802. x family of standards. 802.3 is the Ethernet specification used for wired computer networks; 802.11 is the specification for wireless LAN; 802.15.4 is the specification for the PAN standard used in ZigBee, 6LoWPAN.
The Internet Engineering Task Force is an open standards organisation that is responsible for the Internet Protocol standards. In the past, its request for comments have been responsible for improvement of IPv4 protocol, TCP protocol, and HTTP / 1.1 protocol.
Recently significant movements are taking place around wireless technologies including Wi-Fi Alliance, Bluetooth Special
One of the biggest challenges across IoT devices, sensors, networks and applications is the ability to understand and to communicate with each other
Interest Group and ZigBee Alliance. All three provide member companies, services like interoperability test plan and rights to wear their brand logos.
Wireless protocols However, some of the most innovative changes are taking place with wireless networking protocols. They can be classified based on the following operating characteristics:
• Size of data transfer blocks
• Range of connectivity
• Power requirements
• Networking topology
Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth Smart Bluetooth is a short-range communications technology, which has become important in
computing and consumer products. It will be the key for wearable products connecting to Internet of Things via smartphones in most cases. However, for IoT applications it is Bluetooth Low-Energy or Bluetooth Smart, which is more important since its power consumption is lower than Bluetooth.
Unlike Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart cannot be used for file transfers and its data packet size is smaller. Industry forecasts expect 90 % of Bluetooth-enabled smartphones to be also Bluetooth Smart ready by 2018.
• Frequency: 2.4GHz
• Range: less than 150m
• Data Rates: 1Mbps
Zigbee ZigBee and its various industrial profiles are based on IEEE802.15.4 protocol, which is an industry-standard wireless networking technology. It is meant for applications requiring limited data transfers at low transfer rates within 100m range, typically in a home or building. It has advantages in complex systems requiring low-power operation, high levels of security, high scalability, high node counts and can support wireless control and sensor networks in IoT applications.
• Frequency: 2.4GHz
• Range: less than 100m
• Data Rates: 250kbps
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