Network intelligence—a must for managing
5G-enabled massive IoT

Imagine your business just launched a new solution that servesdelicious frozen drinks to customers at convenience stores
across the country. You’ve given the machines connectivity toreport temperature and to monitor consumption and fill level.
This application data is managed and monitored in the cloud.
You’ve just enabled IoT, right? What could go wrong?
Connecting your IoT devices with cellular networks can create
new opportunities and improve business outcomes. It cangive you the ability to respond quickly to changing market
dynamics, improve customer experiences, create new revenue
streams and ultimately deliver better value to customers. But
simply having devices connected to the network doesn’t get
you all of this.
With IoT application and device data alone, you may be able
to answer some of these questions:• What’s the fill level of my dispensers?
• What flavors are customers consuming most?
• How’s the health of the dispensers in the field right now?
However, without network-provided insights, it may bedifficult to get near real-time answers to other, possibly more
important, questions such as:

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Hidden challenges can hurt your bottom line.
Unexpected expenses
When organizations first commission IoT solutions,they have to make assumptions about data use and,by extension, monthly recurring operating expenses(opex). When actual costs do not align with these
expectations, it causes extra work for both businessand technical teams that must then review expenses
in more detail.
Chief financial officers (CFOs) are the ones who
ultimately receive and review the invoice. It’s their job
to manage and forecast opex costs. Unfortunately,that is made difficult when IoT devices use data
unpredictably. Monthly data use can vary widely due
to devices being added or removed, downloading
software updates, or malfunctioning. This leads tovarying bills, with overage costs that may not surface
until the end of the 30-day billing cycle. Some
organizations solve this with oversized data plans,
but the cost of those plans can quickly erode thereturn on investment for your IoT solution.

• Where are my frozen drink dispensers in the field?
• When was the last time they connected to the network?
How stale is this application data?
• Is there a weather or network impact where thosedispensers are?
• Are my dispensers running the latest firmware? Could newer
firmware lead to better performance and security?
In this paper, we will show you how network connectivity
context can complement IoT application and device data. This
network-based contextual data—available now through Verizon
ThingSpace Intelligence—provides you with actionable insights
so you can refine business operations, enhance product orservice offerings, and reduce business waste.

Security risks
Security is paramount in every solution, but themassive scale of IoT can make traditional security
monitoring untenable. Yet IoT security breaches canbe as serious as any other kind, and lead to lowered
credibility, costly remediation, and additional serious
breaches or exploits.
The average cost of a cybersecurity breach is$9.05 million per event, by some estimates.1
Mitigating this risk requires, among other things,
keeping devices up to date, tracking the physicallocation of devices, and monitoring for misuse of
the device or SIM card. None of which come easy
without network intelligence.

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Troubleshooting
Perhaps the biggest hidden challenge in IoT solutions
is troubleshooting devices. When IoT devices are notworking properly, they not only fail to create businessvalue, but can cause significant burdens for thosemanaging the devices. Operations teams can spend
countless hours visiting devices, analyzing data andrestoring the service. The costs of truck rolls quickly
add up, with estimates ranging from $150 to $500
or more per truck roll. 2

Part of the troubleshooting challenge is the complexity: Theroot cause can be at the device, network, platform or applicationlevel. Isolating the issue not only burns troubleshooting time but
results in downtime or degraded performance for the IoT solution
itself. All this may result in unnecessary additional costs, suchas reverse logistics, truck rolls and support calls, as well as lost
revenue and failure to meet service level agreements.
Other common costs may include:• Increased power and network costs due to software instability• Unaddressed security vulnerabilities• No visibility into operations• Reduced customer satisfaction

Ultimately, all these hidden surprises translate to tangible business impacts that may be different
for each industry but are always costly:
AutomotiveRetail• Costly OEM warranty recalls• Payments not processed• Vehicle software vulnerabilities• Point-of-sale system compromises

Utilities

Supply chain• Unpredictable and costly outages• Asset tracking battery drain• Expensive truck rolls for meter maintenance• Continuous monitoring risks and costly
data overages• Delayed condition monitoring alerts

If your IoT devices are not working optimally, how would youknow? And how would you uncover the hidden business waste?

Stop hidden IoT business waste withnetwork intelligence.
5G is more than just a low-latency, high-bandwidth, dense
network technology. Combining 5G with network intelligencecan complete the picture of what is really happening in the fieldwith your connected assets. Cellular networks, such as the5G networks that will power massive IoT, hold a treasure ofconnectivity intelligence—metadata and insights—that canprovide a fuller picture of what is happening to an IoT solution.

IoT solution designers naturally focus on collecting IoTapplication data such as temperature, vibrations, number oftransactions, number of people detected and so on. Implicit inthose IoT connections is other valuable network data that IoT
solution designers should consider. This network intelligenceis collected independently from the application data. In general,
this data is device agnostic as long as the device is certified
for cellular, meaning the network data doesn’t require
additional instrumentation on the device.
Network intelligence can provide a variety of insights that canhelp troubleshoot IoT devices and answer valuable questions
about IoT solutions.

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Device and connection data:

Location:• When did the device last turn on?

• What is the last known location of the device?

• How often is it retrying?

• Is the device moving to a new cell?

• How much data is it using? How much data
is it expected to use?

• What is the location history?

• When do we expect the device to be online again?

• Is it outside of its normal location?

• When does the device typically communicate
with the network? How much data is typicallytransmitted during those times?

• Did it move to the target destination?

• Is the device roaming?

Device management:

Network context:• What cell tower is the device connected to?
• Is there a network outage, perhaps due
to bad weather?
• What is the signal strength of the device?
• What is the coverage like for this device?
• How well has this device performed comparedto others?

• What is the device’s battery level?
• Is the device provisioned properly?
• What device is currently assigned to this SIM?
• What firmware version is reported by the device?
• Is there new firmware available for the device?
• When was it last rebooted?

Combining this network data with application data can help avoid unexpected surprises and can help unlock IoT’s
potential value. Let’s look at some specific examples of the benefits this can bring.

Unlock IoT value with actionable network intelligence.
Industrial manufacturing:
Machine trouble detection

Building security:
Panel offline detection

Retail:Transaction validation

Agriculture:
Data flow corrupted

Construction:
Earth mover optimization• Insight: Usage dip anomalies• Benefit: Learning of usage dips can provide additional troubleshooting
signals that can help speed machine diagnosis• Insight: Reachability anomaly• Benefit: A security solution provider can issue an out-of-band reboot
command and push new firmware to avoid a truck roll or unnecessary
return merchandise authorization (RMA) of a panel when the panel
application software suffers a fatal error• Insight: Location anomalies• Benefit: Location data can help identify when equipment is not in theexpected location, thus indicating potential fraud and helping protect
sensitive financial information from bad actors• Insight: Network retries• Benefit: By noticing network retries, operators can identify devices thatneed to be reset remotely, thus alleviating data issues and avoiding
unnecessary deployments• Insight: Location dwell-time detection• Benefit: By learning when valuable earth-moving equipment is sitting idle,
construction firms can better plan equipment deployment and lower thecost of moving that equipment from site to site3

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Unlock IoT value with actionable network intelligence.
Rideshare bicycle
or scooters:• Insight: Usage traffic anomaly• Benefit: By noting anomalies in data usage, rideshare operators can prevent
misuse and lock a SIM to their designated equipment

Unexpected overages• Insight: Near real-time network coverage• Benefit: Reduce unnecessary truck rolls for the smart grid when temporary
network outages are the root cause of the missing dataUtilities:

Missing meter data

Supply chain:

Battery drain on devices• Insight: Retries, signal strength• Benefit: By noting how often tracked assets are trying to connect and thesignal strength they are experiencing, operators can see the reason forbattery drain and design a solution that improves uptime• Which devices are using the most data?

Condition-based monitoring case study
Frazil is a frozen beverage company that manages slush
machines at retail stores across the United States. Prior toretrofitting their machines with an IoT solution, executive
management was blind to machine performance and did notknow the answer to even simple questions, such as is themachine on? Is it working? Is it full?

Salesperformance

Whether a machine is full can matter a lot. The IoT data Frazil
now has shows that a machine that’s full only 50% to 75% ofthe time sees 15% lower sales performance on average thanmachines that are full 90% to 100% of the time.

100%

Kept full 100%–90% of the time95%

Kept full 90%–
75% of the time

85%
Kept full 75%–
50% of the time81%
Kept full <50%of the time

Machine maintenanceFrazil now has data-use expectations for its devices. If theIoT solution is working, deviations in data use may indicate
physical or cyber misuse of their assets. And if a device
is not on or working, Frazil also has methods to analyze thedevice, the network, the platform and the performanceto help speed troubleshooting and ultimately get devices
working again faster.
Verizon ThingSpace gives Frazil tools to answer thosequestions and more, including:• How is my data use trending?
• Are my devices running the latest firmware? Can I
update them cost-effectively without impacting thedata-use predictions?

• What is the device’s health?
Read the full case study here.

Verizon ThingSpace comes with built-in network
intelligence for IoT.
ThingSpace is Verizon’s platform-as-a-service offering for IoT
connectivity management and network intelligence. It includes
functions leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machinelearning to identify anomalies in connectivity patterns andtroubleshoot the service experience on the Verizon network.
This allows ThingSpace to provide valuable context to help
answer business questions about the IoT solution.
ThingSpace offers cellular IoT connectivity services with global
reach, making it simpler for organizations to implement, secureand manage solutions. Millions of IoT devices already operate
on our network. Verizon’s ThingSpace platform simplifies themodel for IoT, making it easier, faster and more accessible todevelop IoT solutions.
ThingSpace includes both a management portal andapplication programming interface (API) access to network
insights on the Verizon network. Capabilities include
connectivity management, SIM and device management, andAI-powered intelligence analytics. ThingSpace can inform IoT
operators—even those with massive IoT implementations—on
how their devices are performing on our network. This canhelp your organization:• Reduce bill shock and pay for what you use• Let AI-powered services monitor security on your accountto avoid unauthorized access to your data• Engage intelligent services to troubleshoot devices remotely
and get services performing their best sooner
When combined with Verizon’s robust network and secure
infrastructure, ThingSpace can enable possibilities and help
bring your IoT solution to life.

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ThingSpace IoT intelligence capabilities
Device diagnostics
Usage analytics
Network diagnostics

Network performanceIntelligent
networkmanagement

Near real-time coverage

Value
Economize the bill

Outage events
Reduce cost variability

Device locationWeather overlay

Device management

Service diagnostics

Cost optimization

Security

Usage forecast
Anomaly analytics
Rate plan optimization
Just-in-time activation

Mitigate data breaches

Protect assets

Usage anomaly alerts
Enablingbusinessoutcomes for
IoT solution
managers

Firmware management

Improve uptimes

Location geofence alerts
Reduce truck rolls
Endpoint security

Conclusion
To make smart business decisions, you need actionable
intelligence. Today, your organization generates more datafrom more sources than ever before, but unless you cancost-effectively store, analyze and correlate that data, it isn’t
actionable. What you need is a way to transform that data
into intelligence, and to do that, you need to harness the valueof cellular networks such as 5G by combining network
intelligence with your IoT solutions.

Read more about ThingSpace Intelligence here.
If you need help planning or designing your IoT
solution, talk to our experts in our Managed
Services program.

Regardless of your IoT solution, there is insightful network
context that can augment your raw IoT application data.
ThingSpace Intelligence turns this raw data into informationthat you can act upon quickly to enhance productivity, optimize
processes and ultimately make better-informed decisions.

1 Cost of a Data Breach Report, IBM, 2021. https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/OJDVQGRY
2 Felix Morgan, “How to reduce truck rolls,” Sightcall.com, Oct 8, 2021. https://sightcall.com/how-to-reduce-truck-rolls
Network details & coverage maps at vzw.com. © 2022 Verizon. WP1270322

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