The ITU has established a new ITU-T Study Group to address the standardisation requirements of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, with an initial focus on IoT applications in smart cities. The new group, titled “ITU-T Study Group 20: IoT and its applications, including smart cities and communities,” will be responsible for international standards to enable the coordinated development of IoT technologies, including machine-to-machine communications and ubiquitous sensor networks. The group will develop IoT standards that address urban-development challenges.
A key part of the study will be the standardization of end-to-end architectures for IoT and mechanisms for the interoperability of IoT applications and datasets employed by various vertically oriented industry sectors.
The deployment of IoT technologies is expected to connect an estimated 50 billion devices to the network by year 2020, the ITU said.
In May, Dubai became the world’s first city to assess the efficiency and sustainability of its operations using the key performance indicators developed by the ITU-T Focus Group on Smart Sustainable Cities (FG-SSC). The two-year pilot project will evaluate the feasibility of the indicators with the aim of contributing to their international standardisation. Singapore will host the inaugural meeting of the IoT Study Group.
