# IoT's Tiny Steps towards 5G: Telco's Perspective
## 6 Discussion  
Telecom operators have the opportunity to capture a share of the revenue that is generated by IoT implementation depending on their role in the IoT value chain. Regardless of their role, telcos have to face many technical challenges in order to meet the changing connectivity and performance requirements. Since current cellular networks limit numerous IoT applications, new technologies are being introduced leading towards 5G networks. Therefore, telcos have to focus on deploying these network technologies in order meet the changing requirements necessary to achieve success in IoT. In this regard, writing this paper was motivated by the challenge of providing an enhanced understanding of the scope and classification of the broad range of IoT applications in order to determine and prioritize their performance requirements with the goal of specifying the enabling technologies towards 5G networks. The aim has been to propose a new classification of IoT applications, define and prioritize the performance requirements of such IoT application classes, and give insight into state-of-the-art technologies used to meet these requirements from telco's point of view. The motivation that led to the focus of this paper being on IoT applications classification, performance requirements, and 5G enabling technologies could be explained by telco's need for added value from IoT services. Hence, an analysis of IoT customer service requests inspired us to propose an activity-based classification of IoT applications as it can, according to authors' best knowledge, has allowed telcos to more precisely specify their performance requirements and 5G enabling technologies, thereby improving customer experience. In this regard, the paper fulfilled the following four objectives: (1) the identification of activities relevant to IoT applications and their usage as a new criterion for IoT application classification; (2) the specification and prioritization of performance requirements of such IoT applications classes; (3) the analysis of the radio technologies used to accomplish IoT application requirements; and (4) the identification of the research gaps and the recommendation of new research directions. Through fulfilling these objectives, we reviewed literature from the fields of IoT in 5G service classifications, IoT in 5G performance requirements, and IoT in 5G enabling technologies. Since the first aim of this paper was to propose a new classification of IoT applications, the existing approaches have been summarized to serve as a basis to identify their drawbacks and formulate the appropriate solution to overcome them. In this context, we proposed a new approach to IoT applications classification, which was based on the activity as a new classification criterion denoting the main function/purpose of specific IoT application. This approach enabled a clearer and more precise positioning of particular application in the IoT application spectrum, as well as the determination of performance requirements and enabling technologies from telco's point of view. The activity-based IoT application classification facilitated the specification of the performance requirements and determination of technologies which enable these requirements to be fulfilled. In this context, the proposed approach served as a basis for the simplification of the realization of particular IoT application. For example, although the monitoring- and tracking-based applications seem to be similar, they set different performance requirements on the network, thereby allowing the proposed approach to precisely grade the IoT applications from the same IoT application domain. Furthermore, we associated the activity-based IoT application classes with the 5G service classes, i.e., mMTC and uMTC, in order to specify and prioritize their performance requirements.