Where will value be provided in the IoT ecosystem, by connectivity providers? In some parts of the edge computing ecosystem, connectivity providers seemingly are again relegated to the "connectivity" or "real estate" roles, while the actual "computing as a service" is provided by hyperscale cloud computing firms.
That might be the pattern in IoT as well, which does raise some questions about how much value a connectivity provider brings to partnerships.
Telefónica and Idrica, a company specializing in “digital transformation of water cycle management,” have signed a global partnership agreement to provide services to companies in the water sector, focused on operations management and maintenance.
The agreement includes the development of solutions supported by NB-IoT, LTE-M and 5G networks. The solution allows companies to monitor real-time information on all their infrastructures and processes in one single place and automate recurring tasks, Telefónica says.
As with most such partnerships, Telefónica is likely to supply the connections, Idrica the software and hardware for internet of things operations. Telefónica says it supplies more than 30 million IoT connections worldwide.
The issue is that IoT device connection revenue is quite low, compared to phone connections. Where connection revenue per unit might be more than US $1.00 per month in 2020, that is expected to continue falling at perhaps 20 percent per year.
It also supplies Kite, an in-house solution to manage IoT devices with a dedicated network infrastructure globally deployed and hosted in the cloud.
Since November 2019, IoT, big data, cloud and security services sold by Telefónica are part of Telefónica Tech, the new unit with which Telefónica wants to boost the growth of these new digital businesses.
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