A backbone of connectivity is critical to ensuring South Africans experience the true depth of the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Despite finally emerging on the market as a technology that connects devices, systems and solutions with the potential to revolutionise multiple industries, the implementation of IoT is being hampered by the limitations and complexities that surround connectivity, such as loadshedding, which are inhibiting reliable service delivery.

IoT has slowly started delivering the solutions that are closing industrial, manufacturing, logistics and infrastructure gaps globally by providing the digital capabilities that society needs after having simmered on the edges of innovation and transformation for years, says Vox senior product manager Chris Boshoff.

However, whether using private or public wireless or long-term evolution or fifth-generation, loadshedding is damaging batteries and inhibiting reliable service delivery, which is impacting on businesses, says Boshoff.

The risk of losing the functionality of IoT, owing to poor connectivity, is fundamentally inhibiting uptake and innovation in the country, he says, citing as an example companies that have invested in IoT-powered security systems suddenly experiencing unnecessary alarms and failures, amid connectivity failure, owing to a fault or loadshedding.

However, the potential of IoT remains and, if solutions are built on the correct foundations with a stable and reliable connectivity backbone, then they will deliver precisely what the business wants and needs for IoT, says Boshoff.

There is still some reticence and many organisations remain uncertain as to how IoT can deliver what it promises and fits within their respective environments; however, IoT, according to the Internet of Things Industry Council, is gaining traction in South Africa as companies realise the long-term benefits of cost-savings, maintenance, automation and operational intelligence.

“This is reflected in a slow but steady uptick in IoT adoption in the country. “There are plenty of opportunities here, and the market is hungry for options that operate effectively, in spite of loadshedding and infrastructure challenges.

“IoT has numerous intelligent applications across different industries, not just in the self-driving car or intelligent fridge scenarios so often raised in IoT discussions,” says Boshoff, highlighting the exceptionally intelligent functionality around the monitoring of freight, yellow vehicles and cold storage, besides others, within the logistics sector.

“It has the ability to monitor items at specific temperatures and to provide alerts to stakeholders if the temperatures change or if there are delivery delays.”

This high-end visibility, leveraging data and sensors across multiple touchpoints, can have a significant impact on costs, last-mile delivery and theft.

Further, IoT has applications in manufacturing, with the ability to track products, implement predictive and proactive maintenance schedules and ensure worker safety.

Healthcare practitioners can also use IoT-enabled devices to perform operations on patients in different countries, diagnose patients in rural areas and monitor the health of high-risk individuals from remote systems and devices.

These applications can be extended into building management, personnel monitoring, which is a particularly relevant application for high-risk environments, and power management in offices and homes.

“One of the true value-adds of IoT is its ubiquity and how it can seamlessly shift into both the consumer and business spaces. “This means that everyone can benefit from the value it offers, and ingenuity will win the day when it comes to leveraging the capabilities of IoT to delight customers or redefine industry challenges or transform rural healthcare,” says Boshoff.

While IoT does come across as a complicated technology, particularly in a country, such as South Africa, that is battling with connectivity and power reliability, the solutions evolving around it have a low barrier to entry and are proving invaluable in saving costs and improving processes and productivity.

“The applications are limitless, and the only caveat to success is simple – ensure that the business has a trusted and capable connectivity backbone in place,” Boshoff concludes.