The Economist on the Internet of Things – any moment now.. #IoT
A blog post from The Economist – 
– examines the development, or lack thereof, of the Internet of Things (IoT), much proselytised by Vint Cerf, where all mundane objects are addressable. Various factors have slowed down the process: slow uptake of IPv6; security concerns. Nevertheless the future looks bright:
All the big telecoms firms are getting into this new “machine-to-machine” business. Over the past three months, America’s two largest wireless carriers, Verizon and AT&T, have added more connected devices (2.6m between them) than human subscribers (1.2m) to their cellular networks. There are still only 20m connected devices in North America, compared with more than 300m mobile subscribers. But now that everyone who is likely to own a mobile phone has one, connecting things rather than people is where the carriers expect to get their future growth.
By one reckoning, there could be 50 billion connected devices worldwide by 2020. Such a forecast was deemed wildly optimistic a year or two ago. Today, it seems almost pessimistic. Since the free Linux operating system is used widely to manage internet-connected devices, Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, takes a special interest in the IoT’s future. By his reckoning, the coming decade could see two trillion devices being connected to the internet.
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