Qualcomm recently released a statement saying that India is all poised to be the global IoT leader. Not long after, a report published by Deloitte and IAMAI (the Internet And Mobile Association of India) clarified how this prediction may come true. The report announced that in the country, “industrial IoT will surpass consumer IoT by the year 2020, creating a deeper and more profound effect on the nation’s economy.”

This is not the first time India’s potential as a global IoT leader has surfaced in the media. Only a few weeks ago ETCIO had an interview with VS Shridhar, the senior Vice president and head of IoT at Tata Communications, to discuss the key points of how IoT will grow in the country, and what role the world’s largest LoRaWAN network may play in doing this. Before diving into that, let’s first take a look at what the present situation is concerning IoT in India, and how other companies are contributing to it.

At present, the situation around the IoT market in India is rather disappointing. As VS Shridhar himself pointed out in the interview, until now India has not seen adequate large-scale implementation of IoT solutions. He describes how IoT is under-evaluated as something that can offer ‘operational efficiencies’ and ‘cost reduction’ for service providers like that of SCM.

However, the real and large-scale applications of the technology can actually have a huge effect on ‘human welfare’ in developing countries. Things like clean water, roads infrastructure, electricity, and healthcare that are taken for granted in developed nations, still have huge implementation struggles in emerging countries and this is where IoT can offer tremendous help.

This explains why India is being perceived by IoT experts as a conducive market, and why Tata Communications has taken the bet and chose it as the country for deploying the world’s largest LoRaWAN network here.

LoRaWAN, aka LoRa Wide Area Network, is a Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) protocol specification, designed to create dedicated IoT networks. It is built on the top of the LoRa that uses unlicensed radio spectrum bands to support low-power communications between remote sensors. There are a number of features that make LoRaWAN ideal for the large-scale and industrial IoT implementation in the country, some of which include low-power and throughput requirements, and has the ability to perform seamlessly in extreme environments. With these features, the network sounds really promising for the varied large scale and smart use cases, as were described by VS Shridhar.

Furthermore, it’s not just TATA Communications that has perceived India’s potential for IoT growth. Reliance Jio and Vodafone are the key players among many who are aggressively trying to implement the right foundation for IoT growth in India. Jio has been trying since the beginning of the year to disrupt the IoT space in the country, and has already launched a narrow band IoT network and is upping his game by launching consumer and industrial IoT products. Vodafone, on the other hand, is evaluating doing the same by first bringing a few use cases to further grow its enterprise business in the country as well.

Resources:

https://cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet-of-things/how-tata-communicationslorawan-network-fostering-iot-needs-in-india/65037691

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/india-is-poised-to-be-leader-in-iot-says-qualcomm-2762241.html

https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/india-has-not-seen-too-many-large-scale-iot-solutions-says-head-of-internet-of-things-of-tata-communications/1257142/

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/reliance-jio-now-looks-to-disrupt-iot-space-in-india/62680682