The IoT (Internet of Things) space is exploding today, with everyone looking to grab a piece of the action- however the challenge is that so far there are very few standards agreed and very little agreement on who is doing what, and how this is being monetised!

In the traditional model we had a network on the one hand, and then service or content on the other, perhaps a SI or ISV included also, and business models typically ended up involving some sort of rev split; but with new devices coming on board and new data being gathered, it is not always clear who should be charging for what!  Everyone from chip maker , through CSP , platform provider, content provider and Analytics provider  are jostling to get the most of the pie as possible.  This means the challenge is ensuring that you are maximising the potential economics of this new ecosystem. An example is the role a Carrier plays in the connected car space: currently the Carrier is providing connectivity, which is fine, but this certainly is not all that the carrier could be involved in. Carriers already have much content that could be very relevant to the consumer while in the vehicle, this can be offered to consumer as a service. For example streaming music in the carrier cloud, or better still by advising distances between the car and contacts in a contact list stored by the carrier on a NAB.  Monetisation can go further than this ; all the data collected through this connectivity, even anonymised meta data such as location, time of day, speed etc, can potentially  be added to the carrier’s own meta data on the customer, then analysed and sold to relevant parties- marketers, insurance companies etc.

A key point here is whether this Big Data will really be targeted to individuals or instead be anonymised data. I suspect the former will end up not being realistic as it will require active opt-in from mass consumers. However the anonymised data that could be used , especially when combined with the Carriers’ own network’s Big Data  – could certainly prove to be very valuable.