Forecasts and estimation of the number of IoT devices deployed globally continue to rise and rise again. Few industry analysts or researchers agree on what that number eventually might be but all accept that there will likely be upwards of 30 billion of them by 2030 and that, by that time, the market will be worth US$ 20 trillion or more. Such massive figures would have been dismissed as laughable when the notion of the Internet of Things first filtered into public consciousness back in 2010. However, rather than undergoing the sort of steady linear expansion that characterized the "one device, one user" epoch (i.e. one mobile handset per subscriber or one PC per owner) the growth of IoT has been explosive and close to the point of becoming exponential. The fact is that there are already many millions of IoT devices and sensors already out there - and more and more are coming online every day. The remarkable direct result of the mass deployment of IoT-connected devices is that the internet we know and use today is very much bigger and more expansive than it would ever, or could ever, have been without them.

Among the critical elements required to support expanding Internet of Things deployments are wider wireless pipes that consume less power. That's the promise of IoT networks supported by emerging fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless network rollouts that go well beyond mobile phones to support networks of connected devices. As wireless carriers jockey for position--including a proposed merger between T-Mobile and Sprint--emerging IoT applications such as low-power, wide area connections are forecast to grow at a more than 200-percent annual rate through 2021. Industry tracker IHS Markit predicts in an updated forecast released this week that emerging 5G-based connections will help boost machine-to-machine connections as well new IoT platforms and services. "In order to scale up IoT revenues, operators will need to pursue a broader IoT strategy that goes beyond connectivity into IoT platforms, vertical offerings and ecosystem orchestration," notes Julian Watson, senior IoT analyst at IHS. "By pre-integrating partner platforms, hardware and sensors into their IoT offerings, operators can make it easier for enterprises to plan and budget for IoT projects."