# IoT's Tiny Steps towards 5G: Telco's Perspective
## 5 IoT in 5G Enabling Technologies  
Activity-based classification of IoT applications proposed in Section 3 allows telecom operators to identify performance requirements of each class relying on 5G service classification, as discussed in Section 4. However, these performance requirements cannot be satisfied for many IoT applications with current cellular (2 nd, 3 rd, and 4 th generation) network technologies, since they limit their potential due to many issues [3], i.e., protocol implementation complexity, poor coverage in non-urban environments, high cost of networking equipment and data transmission. In order to overcome these issues, many dedicated communication technologies are being installed. From the very beginning of IoT, many proprietary technologies, such as radio-frequency identification (RFID), wireless highway addressable remote transducer (WirelessHART) or Z-Wave, have first appeared, and then, more generic ones, such as Bluetooth, IEEE 802.15.4, IPv6 over low-power wireless personal area networks (6 LoWPAN). However, none of these technologies have become a market leader mainly because of technology shortcomings and business model uncertainty [219]. Hence, new solutions, such as low-power wireless fidelity (LP Wi-Fi), low-power wide area (LPWA) or several improvements for cellular M2M communications have become serious candidates for IoT implementation. LP Wi-Fi is an IEEE 802.11 ah standard designed to extend the application area of Wi-Fi networks in order to meet IoT requirements (i.e., large number of devices, large coverage range, energy constrains). First performance studies indicate that this standard will support a broad range of M2M scenarios with a required QoS level, and enable scalable and cost-effective solutions. In addition, LPWA networks have been deployed for some time in the form of many different proprietary solutions (e.g., Amber Wireless, Coronis, Huawei's CIoT, LoRa, M2M Spectrum Networks, Sigfox, Weightless,etc. ), but only the LoRa Alliance, Sigfox and Weightless are involved in LPWA standardization activities. Despite some drawbacks which are mainly related to use of an unlicensed spectrum, LPWA networks are expected to become a key enabler for IoT deployment in early market rollouts and for limited IoT applications [219]. The appearance of these IoT communication technologies was considered as competition to current cellular networks from the telco's point of view from the start. But, in the meanwhile, telcos have realized that the aforementioned communication technologies can be utilized to meet the changing connectivity and performance requirements of IoT applications. Therefore, many dedicated communication technologies have already been deployed in various IoT applications. For example, Orange, Swisscom and South Korea (SK) Telecom have built nationwide networks based on LoRa [3], whereas Deutsche Telekom (DT), Vodafone and all three Chinese operators have completed the rollout of narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), as another LPWA standard utilizing existing long term evolution (LTE) networks [36]. In this context, standardization and interoperability becomes critical because there is a need to consider a broad range of connectivity solutions as presented in Figure 4[37]. One of those solutions includes satellite technologies which integrated with 5G radio technologies form the 6 th generation (6G) standard for providing global coverage [38]. In this regard, standardization activities of 5G and beyond are being undertaken by several standards bodies, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the 3 rd Generation Partnership Project (3 GPP), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R), and ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T). An overview on these standards bodies and their effort to develop communication standards for 5G and beyond are provided in [112].