DoT asks to TEC to finalise IoT, M2M standards in 2 months

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The Department of Telecom has asked its technical body to finalise standards for Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine technology in two months as the country aspires to roll out 5G services at par with the rest of the world.

The Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC) under the department is preparing finalising standards for telecom equipment and devices for 5G services. The roadmap for M2M communications was released in May 2015 but the centre is yet to finalise generic requirement for the segment.

IoT and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) devices would be widely deployed technology for implementing 5G services.

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha while releasing a technical report -- M2M/IoT Enabling Smart Infrastructure -- urged the TEC to prop up its work in framing standards especially in international area to meet the requirement of the country.

"Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication and the Internet-of-Things (IoT) have the potential to transform our lives, by radically changing the way we interact with the physical world around us," Sinha said.

Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan appreciated technical reports released by the TEC but said it is only 10-15 per cent of the work that has to be done in the area of IoT and M2M.

"TEC in coming two months will apply itself to actually coming up with standards for M2M and IoT. This is mandatory," Sundararajan said.

She said 5 billion IoT/M2M devices are likely to come up in India in the coming years that will be crucial for driving 5G technology.

Sundararajan said that India is aspiring to take a leadership role in 5G technology by looking at developing inclusive 5G technologies.

"5G as technology has already come into some countries like South Korea. The US and China are gearing up but nobody has really spoken about inclusive 5G that is where I feel India has a huge opportunity. While most of these new technologies address top 2.5 billion people in the world, the rest of the 5 billion are looking for solutions that India can develop and supply to the world," Sundararajan said.

She said that India is looking for deployment of large scale sensors in the field of health management, environmental monitoring, agriculture to achieve global leadership.

"Largest number of startup in IoT space are coming out of India. in the field of health management, environmental monitoring. We cannot become next level of global champions unless we get our standard framework in order," Sundararajan said.