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The International Data Corporation (IDC) has released report indicating Internet of Things, IoT revenue will hit a $93m estimate for 2017 alone in Nigeria.
Managing Director of Ericsson Nigeria, Rutger Reman, who revealed the revenue projection recently, said with the IDC IoT revenue projection of $93m for Nigeria, a substantial amount of the $1.3bn spent on importing milk in Nigeria could be saved through animal tagging.
He believes that IoT provides the means to deliver efficient, innovative solutions that meet socio-economic challenges and transform business models to unlock growth in sub-Saharan Africa.
“While Nigeria and South Africa will continue to have the highest number of connected devices, the IoT is taking shape in the rest of the region, especially east Africa. Across the sub-Saharan Africa, we foresee cellular IoT connections growing from 11 million in 2016 to 75 million connections in 2022,” Reman said.
Reman noted that the industries that would drive the projected IoT revenue in Nigeria this year “are agriculture, automotive, health, energy, logistics and supply”.
“In agriculture, for instance, we can ensure increased yields by deploying the IoT sensors that capture soil data to determine potential yield, humidity, harvest time, amount of irrigation per time, among other things.
“Using the data collected from these systems, we can optimise for best planting conditions, thus ensuring maximum yield output.
“We could also embed monitoring sensors on cattle to track average milk production. With data gathered from the IoT sensors, we can determine best producers and optimise their living conditions for increased output,” he said.
The Ericsson Nigeria boss said in the healthcare sector, company could introduce virtual expert medical interventions for births, surgeries, etc, especially in remote/rural areas.
“A medical expert seating anywhere in the world can assist a local social worker or another medical expert through a medical operation or exercise, thus saving time spent on travel and reducing risks from travelling long distances to receive medical care,” he said.
“The utility sector for energy and water where we have smart metering is steadily gaining ground in Nigeria. We see this being developed further so that consumers are able to control the power or water they use,” he added.
Reman said using the IoT, energy or water consumption could be optimised and evenly distributed to areas with greater need, thus saving and minimising energy losses.
He further stated that these use cases could be replicated across diverse industries, saying that at the heart of the IoT were data and analytics.
“The amount of data made possible through the IoT makes it possible to monitor trends, predict consequences, and forestall occurrences that lead to overall improvement in societies, industries and the economy,” he added.
He, however, said there were numerous standardisation challenges and making available the low-band spectrum that would enable wider coverage was still a challenge.
Reman explained that “Not much licensing is taking place since WRC 15 (decisions taken at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2015,” adding that “The WRC’s job is to review, and, if necessary, revise the radio regulations – the international treaty governing the use of the radio-frequency spectrum and the geostationary-satellite and non-geostationary-satellite orbits) as most countries have still not concluded digital migration
“In addition, government’s plan to increase broadband penetration across Nigeria to 30 per cent by 2018 has to continue on course. We are happy that the government has shown commitment to digitalisation through the creation of the Digital Transformation Office within the Ministry of Communication,” he concluded.