MuniWireless

The Internet of Things is getting a lot of interest not just from the French government but also from the other member states of the European Union. Recently, the Ministry of Universities and Research in France held a two-day conference in the city of Nice which focused on promoting the “Internet of Things”. At the same time and also in Nice, Eric Besson, French Minister for the Internet Economy was busy gathering his counterparts from the other 26 EU member states to discuss the Internet of the Future and coordinate efforts to develop the Internet of Things in Europe.  The initiative is taking place under the French Presidency of the European Council of Ministers. The term “Internet of Things” has come to describe a number of technologies and research disciplines that enable the Internet to reach out into the real world of communicating objects. Technologies like RFID, short-range wireless communications, real-time localization and sensor networks are becoming common, bringing the Internet of Things into commercial use sooner rather than later.

27 European Ministers call for action on the Internet of Things

“During its Presidency of the European Union,” said Besson, “France will commit to accelerating the development of information and communication technologies. For this reason, I organized a ministerial meeting on the Internet of the future.” Besson mentioned three objectives:

(1) Ensure Europe remains a major economic force: “Europe has to be in a central position to take advantage of the Internet of the future. It has the scientific, technical and industrial know-how to accomplish this.”

(2) Europe wants to retain control over its critical infrastructures for the Internet of the Future and assure privacy of data for its enterprises and citizens: “This issue brings up the question of the governance of the Internet of the future, which is going to be very different from the governance of the Internet when it was connecting computers only. Data exchanged on the Internet of the future will have to be processed on the European territory.”

(3) Protection of freedom and privacy: this issue is intertwined with the control of critical infrastructure mentioned in the second objective.

A European ONS root has been created in France

To reach these objectives, France has already created a European root for the “Object Naming System” of the Internet of Things in cooperation with Orange Business Services as a hosting company. ONS is to the Internet of objects what DNS is to the existing Internet. This ONS root was created in April 2008 and is equivalent to the US root managed by Verisign, created in 2005. “It is not a war against ICANN,” explained Besson in a press conference. “We met recently in Paris and agreed on several measures to improve how ICANN functions. But for the Internet of things, which is going to be more decentralized, it would make sense if everyone has its own root. This issue will be addressed during the meeting with the delegation of Ministers.”

In the end, the group of ministers came out with six proposals, which will be included in a common declaration of the EU Council of Ministry on 27 November 2008 (the date on which the French presidency of the EU ends).

Six proposals for the Internet of Things in Europe

(1) Regulations governing high-speed networks (i.e. FTTH) need to be improved and made more precise to encourage public and private investment. “These infrastructures, wired or wireless, will be the lifeline of the Internet of Things” said Besson. “We need them to make them faster.”

(2) EU member states must coordinate in R&D activities related to the Internet of the future. Improving the dialog between them is key to the development of a European industry and market.

(3) Security is a major concern. “We have to be very pro-active to improve resilience of our infrastructure networks,” said Besson. “We just can’t wait for the next major failure as mobile networks are becoming more and more used in our daily activities.”

(4) “We want the “silence of the chips”. This means users have to right to silence RFID tags when they want,” Besson said. For the members of the delegation, this is a significant move to protect privacy. It may bring some technical issues, but it is already outlined in the work of the European Commission. It will be emphasized in the final declaration.

(5) Coordination in managing the frequency spectrum across Europe is essential as the Internet of the future will rely a lot on wireless networks. The recent “Telecom Package” highlighted several important measures to be considered.

(6) Creation of a general governance for the Internet of Things: this governance has to be multiparty and decentralized, based on the experience of the French ONS root created recently.

- – - – - – -

Related articles:

Progress in reform of European telecom regulations

Related posts:

1. Sarkozy Digital Plan 2012 is ambitious, but overshadowed by financial crisis
2. EU moves closer to protecting end users rights in piracy cases
3. EC aims to raise broadband penetration in Europe