CES 2016: Why the IoT needs fiber-optic broadband to succeed

A panel of fiber broadband experts speaking at CES 2016 in Las Vegas (NV) said the Internet of Things (IoT) will not only benefit from fiber-optic broadband, it will require it. Katie Espeseth, vice president of new products for – the Electronic Power Board (EPB) in Chattanooga (TN), responsible for building and maintaining one of the country's most famous fiber-optic networks – explained that the country's first gigabit-speed municipal broadband network was built to support an IoT application. Tasked with maintaining power supply to the city, the EPB sought to deploy a series of supercomputers that would constantly monitor the power grid throughout the city. This called for an always-on, gigabit-speed internet service. Today, the organization has 1,400 devices operating in the field, diagnosing problems on the power grid and re-routing power to resolve outages. Espeseth said the system has reduced power outage duration time by 55% to 60% since it was deployed. This would not be possible without a 100% fiber-optic support network, she said.

Lev Gonick, CEO and co-founder of OneCommunity, pointed to a common theme at CES in 2016 – the importance of the network to handle 4K high-definition video.