The GSMA has launched a new directory service that aims to break IoT big data out of vertical silos worldwide, harmonize them and make them available to developers and third parties, enabling them to create new IoT services.
The IoT Big Data API Directory provides details of IoT and context data sets covering machines, devices, automotive, roads, environment, smart home and agriculture. All of the data sets are harmonized and can be viewed on github. A common approach to data sharing lowers costs and creates opportunities for IoT developers, data brokers and data providers, the GSMA said.
The directory is designed to encourage a common approach to data sharing that will help the IoT to realize its full potential and encourage the development of new projects across transport, the environment and smart cities, said GSMA chief technology officer Alex Sinclair.
“The IoT generates a huge amount of data that is currently retained in vertical silos. However, in order for the IoT to reach its full potential this data needs to be released and made available to developers and third parties,” said Sinclair. “A common, collaborative and interoperable approach to big data will remove the commercial and technical barriers to capitalizing on the IoT opportunity and usher in a new era of IoT solutions that will help the market to scale. We encourage mobile operators to collaborate with the wider industry to benefit from the big data opportunity.”
The GSMA says China Mobile, China Unicom, KT, Orange and Telefónica have already implemented solutions enabling them to share harmonized IoT data.
“Creating heterogeneous data formats in the IoT world to share anonymized data is both achievable and necessary, and our work with FIWARE supports a more efficient management of municipal services and brings open standards to transform cities into engines of growth,” said Thierry Nagellen, program manager of big data at Orange Labs. “This GSMA initiative offers a unique opportunity to propose a common model that can be regularly improved. The interoperability provided by this coordinated approach democratizes IoT data consumption through any type of networks and will encourage the creation of new services.”
Dr Kyung-Pyo Hong, SVP of KT’s R&D Institute, added that multi-purpose utilization of IoT data is “becoming increasingly important in order to respond quickly to various service needs and effectively provide information required by various application and service providers.”
The GSMA has also released a document called the ‘IoT Big Data Framework’ to define how mobile operators can approach the delivery of IoT big data services. It is designed to enable industry participants to work together collaboratively to deliver big data services and support an ecosystem of third-party application developers.
The GSMA says cellcos are key participants in the delivery of an IoT big data ecosystem, although much of the IoT data that is collected will come from a range of data provider partners. The document provides a framework for the delivery of IoT big data services that recognizes the many different approaches towards the services that are offered and the technology choices that are made. The proposed architecture offers a degree of flexibility which allows IoT big data services to be offered in multiple ways.
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