ISLAMABAD: The government is all set to put in place regulatory framework for Internet of Things (IoT) as its potential impact on individuals and businesses, raises regulatory requirements such as licensing, numbering and addressing, spectrum management, network standards, data protection, privacy and security, says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
According to the ITU, the IoT can be viewed as a global infrastructure for the information society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things based on existing and evolving interoperable information and communication technologies (ICT).
The Strategy and Development Division of the PTA has stated that the IoT is the fastest growing phenomena worldwide with certain countries having implemented it with light touch regulations.
With the rapid growth in demand and use cases of the IoT, it is foreseen that in the coming 10-15 years, the IoT will saturate into all dimensions of human lives, and will have an impact on the industry and the economy at large. As IoT is not about which protocol or which platform or which cloud is used, however it is about sharing the information among different systems, different applications, and different business sectors.
The authority further stated that it was vital to have a regulatory framework in place, well in time, for IoT, so that complete benefits of this innovation could be passed on to the citizens.
The stepwise growth of this sector will demand cross-sector policies and a comprehensive regulatory framework.
The deployment of the IoT systems in multiple sectors, and their potential impact on individuals and businesses, raises regulatory requirements such as licensing, numbering and addressing, spectrum management, network standards, QoS, data protection, and privacy and security, etc.
Such requirements can be sector specific or cross-sector in nature.
Therefore, the government/regulator has a major role to play in shaping market rules for convenient and smooth IoT adoption, such as appropriate licensing/registration and industry/business-friendly regulations, etc.
The focus of the authority is to have an enabling and comprehensive regulatory framework to create sustainable IoT development and associated deployments.
Moreover, regulatory guidelines are also needed to be set forth for data collection, data analysis, data sharing, use of IoT data, data privacy, and data security, etc. In addition, rules are required to be established about liability and ownership, for all the sectors. Currently, the regulatory frameworks for the IoT services are in their early stages worldwide, with very few countries formalising any specific roadmap.
The issues and challenges, while formulating regulatory framework involve licensing, spectrum and management of licensed as well as unlicensed bands, numbering plan, permanent roaming, quality of service, security, privacy, data protection, which are dealt in this paper.
The authority has sought comments and views of the members of the PTA, Industry Working Group on the IoT, the concerned industry and the general public, on this issues and challenges of the IoT for formulation of regulatory framework for the country. In Pakistan, international and national ICT firms are in early stages of developing innovative services using IoT technology.
Some of the IoT use cases include advanced metering infrastructure with automated meter reading on real-time or near-time two-way communication, smart devices/sensors/actuators, smart farming, healthcare solutions, smart grids and connected agriculture.
Most of such applications are currently being provided through cellular networks.
However, there is a need to formulate a comprehensive regulatory framework elaborating requirements for developments of the IoT ecosystem in licensed as well as unlicensed bands.
Some of the frequency bands for unlicensed IoT have been proposed by Frequency Allocation Board (FAB).
The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications (MoIT&T) in Section 3(iii) of Telecom Policy-2015 has emphasised on forward looking to provision of the new services using latest technologies.
Later, the policy directive of the Ministry of IT on test and development of 5G dated October 16, 2017 had identified few bands for 5G and also required, to recommend, in consultation with industry/stakeholders, the suitable frequency bands in view of future technologies. In view of this, and also keeping into consideration the latest trends of the IoT and 5G, PTA has created an industry working group. The aim of this working group is primarily to: (a) Foresee the IoT future developments in Pakistan, and (b) To evaluate and recommend the possible regulatory options (requirements in terms of spectrum, data protection/privacy, roaming, numbering/addressing, device standardization/type approval, etc.), that the PTA and the Government of Pakistan may adopt to tackle the challenges and avail the opportunities offered by the IoT services/applications.
The IoT communication is in its evolution.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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