An IoT solution from a telecommunications perspective

What does Spitfire do?

Spit­fire is a medi­um-sized tele­coms com­pa­ny and inter­net ser­vice provider. We spe­cialise in con­nec­tiv­i­ty for small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es. The com­pa­ny was found­ed in 1988 and I joined in 1993. We now pro­vide telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices to approx­i­mate­ly 6,000 small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es. We have recent­ly been grant­ed an indus­try award for the excel­lence of our net­work.  An expand­ing field of inter­est to us is the inter­net of things (IoT). If you wish to imple­ment an IoT appli­ca­tion, we can help to con­nect it all togeth­er over a fixed and mobile net­work.

What distinguishes the requirements of an IoT network?

An IoT appli­ca­tion is gen­er­al­ly made of up IoT devices, and pos­si­bly an IoT gate­way, in the field that either relay infor­ma­tion about the local envi­ron­ment or do some­thing to change it, and an IoT plat­form or IoT appli­ca­tion serv­er that process the data and pro­vide an inter­face to appli­ca­tion users. The net­work­ing require­ments of the lat­ter are sim­i­lar to any core IT func­tion and those of the for­mer high­ly appli­ca­tion spe­cif­ic.

How diverse are the requirements of IoT device connectivity?

Very. IoT dri­ves new demands with regards con­nec­tiv­i­ty. They may now be mobile, have pow­er lim­i­ta­tions, they may even be embed­ded in con­crete or expect­ed to last for years with­out any main­te­nance. Con­sid­er a Devon red deer farm. The farmer wants to attach a geolo­ca­tion device with a col­lar to each deer, but how does the device com­mu­ni­cate back to the IoT plat­form? The best solu­tion might be a LoRaWAN® with a base station/aerial on a local high point and an IoT gate­way and 4G router that com­mu­ni­cates with the local mobile mast near­by. Alter­na­tive­ly, a water meter a foot below the road sur­face out­side the farmer’s house down in the val­ley might ben­e­fit from a nar­row­band-IoT trans­mit­ter that com­mu­ni­cates with the same mobile mast now sev­er­al miles away.

Why is a holistic view of the customer’s local and wide area network important to a successful IoT application implementation?

An IoT appli­ca­tion should be one spe­cialised aspect of the customer’s over­all net­work­ing infra­struc­ture. As well as devices on site, the IoT plat­form and IoT appli­ca­tion may be sit­u­at­ed in the tele­coms ser­vice provider net­work, on-premise in the cus­tomer comms room or in the cloud. The users access­ing the IoT plat­form or appli­ca­tion may be in the office, at home or trav­el­ling in the field. The solu­tion must con­sid­er the required band­width, qual­i­ty of ser­vice and secu­ri­ty from end to end. A secure vir­tu­al pri­vate net­work, or VPN, encrypts data to ensure it can­not be eaves­dropped.

Suppose a prospective client gets in touch, what happens next?

We will talk to them about their busi­ness and the IT appli­ca­tions they use. Then we dis­cuss the net­work­ing require­ments of those appli­ca­tions. These may dif­fer con­sid­er­ably, for exam­ple a tele­phone call requires low band­width, but good qual­i­ty of ser­vice; a data back-up, high band­width and ade­quate qual­i­ty of ser­vice. Then we design an over­all net­work solu­tion that meets those require­ments. Our method­ol­o­gy is called cus­tomer appli­ca­tions net­work needs, or CANN. It is par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful when con­sid­er­ing IoT appli­ca­tions because the ecosys­tem is much broad­er than that of typ­i­cal busi­ness soft­ware appli­ca­tions, with a far greater diver­si­ty of appli­ca­tion net­work­ing require­ments and the solu­tions avail­able. 

What can IoT users get wrong?

A lot. We see com­pa­nies using 4G con­sumer SIMs in devices. It’s a sim­ple way to con­nect some­thing and may work OK, but can also have a lot of short­com­ings. The mobile oper­a­tor will allo­cate a dynam­ic IP address and any com­mu­ni­ca­tion must be ini­ti­at­ed by the IoT device. Con­se­quent­ly, man­age­ment of the IoT device will be lim­it­ed as will secu­ri­ty. The IoT device can­not be part of a pri­vate net­work. The user may be on an inap­pro­pri­ate com­mer­cial pack­age.

What’s the solution?

A busi­ness grade 4G SIM might be. This should pro­vide a fixed IP address for enhanced access, man­age­ment and secu­ri­ty. The IoT device can com­mu­ni­cate direct­ly with the IoT plat­form or appli­ca­tion serv­er. Alter­na­tive­ly, the IoT device can be made part of an MPLS (mul­ti-pro­to­col label switch­ing) or pri­vate net­work man­aged by the ser­vice provider. The SIMs may even be “ruggedised” to with­stand a more hos­tile envi­ron­ment.

When would 2G or narrowband-IoT be more appropriate?

This is an excel­lent solu­tion for low-band­width appli­ca­tions that in par­tic­u­lar only need to trans­mit data on an occa­sion­al basis over a long dis­tance or from a loca­tion with poor mobile recep­tion. It’s also real­ly great at pen­e­trat­ing through walls and oth­er struc­tures, where 4G and espe­cial­ly 5G may strug­gle. A good exam­ple is a smart water meter locat­ed below ground out­side a res­i­den­tial dwelling.

Why use a LoRaWAN®?

A LoRaWAN® pro­vides a low-pow­er wide area net­work that can cov­er 10kms or more in rur­al areas. The WAN can then be con­nect­ed to an IoT gate­way pro­vid­ing a sin­gle con­nec­tion to the mobile oper­a­tor using a 4G SIM which may help con­trol costs, pro­vide low­er pow­er con­sump­tion and bet­ter trans­mis­sion capa­bil­i­ty for each indi­vid­ual IoT device. LoRaWAN®s have been used for appli­ca­tions as diverse as track­ing rein­deer and agri­cul­tur­al water con­sump­tion. They might also be very use­ful on a build­ing site.

Is wireless always the best solution?

No. There are times when we advise cus­tomers to con­nect their devices to a stan­dard Cat 5e eth­er­net cable and data switch as they would in an office. A com­mon solu­tion in fac­to­ries or ware­hous­es is to con­nect devices with Cat 5e to an IoT gate­way, which in turn may be con­nect­ed to a broad­band, eth­er­net or 4G router. A very good exam­ple of this solu­tion is a build­ing man­age­ment sys­tem that can be incor­po­rat­ed into the office LAN.

I have an IoT project, can I call you and your team at Spitfire?

We’d love to hear from you. We are tele­coms experts and can help you no mat­ter what your prob­lem, sim­ple or com­plex.

To find out more please vis­it Spitfire.co.uk

Spon­sored by

Spit­fire Net­work Ser­vices Lim­it­ed