Technology and Telecommunications

IoT in telecommunications means two things: network operators provide the NB-IoT, LTE-M and 5G connectivity the Internet of Things runs on, and they need IoT themselves to monitor cell sites, fiber nodes and data centers. Both are everyday practice at network operators, data center operators and technology companies.

The pressure comes from three sides: network infrastructure must be available around the clock, data centers have to lower and prove their PUE under new energy efficiency rules, and millions of end devices need secure, scalable connectivity.

On this page you will find implemented solution examples from the IoT Use Case network, from data center cooling optimisation and control cabinet monitoring to smart meter gateways and 5G remote maintenance, with the users, providers and technologies behind them.

IoT in Telecommunications: User and Enabler at the Same Time

The technology and telecommunications industry sits on both sides of the Internet of Things. Network operators provide the cellular, NB-IoT, LTE-M and 5G connectivity that IoT solutions in every other industry run on. At the same time, they operate thousands of distributed sites, cabinets and data centers of their own that need to be monitored, maintained and run efficiently.

What sets the industry apart is scale. A network operator manages millions of SIM cards, a data center operator thousands of controllers, and much of this equipment is critical infrastructure. IoT solutions here have to scale, run redundantly and meet high security requirements.

Typical IoT Use Cases in Technology and Telecom

Data Center and Server Room Monitoring

Temperature and humidity sensors on racks, power meters at PDU level, differential pressure sensors on the cooling system and leak sensors under the raised floor form the backbone of physical data center monitoring. The readings flow into a DCIM system (data center infrastructure management) or an IIoT platform. When a value crosses its threshold, an alert goes out automatically, before a hotspot shuts servers down.

The same principle works in a small server room or control cabinet. In the ifm solution example, IO-Link sensors measure temperature and humidity inside and outside the cabinet, a contact probe watches the transformer as a hotspot, and electronic fuses report each of up to 16 circuits of the 24 V supply individually.

Optimising Data Center Cooling and Lowering PUE

PUE (power usage effectiveness) is the ratio of a data center's total energy consumption to the consumption of its IT hardware. A PUE of 1.5 means that every kilowatt hour for servers comes with 0.5 kWh for cooling, power distribution and lighting. Cooling is almost always the biggest lever for data center energy efficiency.

How much can be gained there is shown by NTT DATA and WAGO: Global Data Centers operates 45 data centers in EMEA and is moving 35 of them to AI-based optimisation. Around 2,000 WAGO controllers feed real-time data from chillers, pumps and power distribution via Modbus. The expected result is 35 to 40 percent less energy for cooling, with the investment paying back in under a year of operation.

Regulation is making PUE mandatory. Germany's Energy Efficiency Act (EnEfG) requires existing data centers to reach a PUE of 1.5 by July 2027 and 1.3 by July 2030, and new data centers from July 2026 to reach 1.2. Without continuous energy monitoring at rack, row and building level, this can neither be managed nor proven.

Remote Monitoring of Network Infrastructure and Cell Sites

Sensors on base stations, fiber distribution points and outdoor cabinets report temperature, voltage, humidity and door openings. Deviations are detected before components fail and SLA penalties apply. That saves unplanned site visits, which quickly become the largest operating cost for widely distributed infrastructure.

The solution by Deutsche Telekom IoT and D+H shows how an on-site measurement becomes remote monitoring: a measuring box with an LTE modem connects via 2G, 4G or 5G, depending on the site, to the Cloud of Things and calculates energy losses and CO₂ emissions in real time. The box is shipped by post instead of being installed by a technician.

IoT Connectivity: NB-IoT, LTE-M, 5G or LPWAN

Which wireless technology fits depends on data volume, energy budget and location:

• NB-IoT for small data volumes, long battery life and good building penetration, for example for meters and sensors in basements.
• LTE-M for mobile devices and somewhat larger data volumes, with handover between cells.
• 5G for high data rates and low latency, for example remote maintenance with video or large software updates.
• mioty and other LPWAN networks for very large numbers of battery-powered sensors and applications that must run independently of public networks.

For large fleets, SIM management often matters more than the radio technology. co.met and Telefónica connect smart meter gateways for around four million metering points via a global SIM that automatically switches to whichever network is available, and manage the cards on a multi-tenant platform with an API.

Private 5G, Campus Networks and Secure Remote Access

Network operators and system integrators build private 5G networks for plants, ports, airports and logistics hubs. Not every use case needs a private network, though: Siemens shows how machines at remote sites can be maintained securely over the public 5G network using an industrial router, VPN and a role concept. 5G coverage already exceeds 90 percent in many European countries.

Resilient Communication for Critical Infrastructure

What happens when cellular networks and power fail? The province of South Tyrol and Swissphone built a dedicated mioty network for this: 50 base stations cover 7,400 km² of mountains, 333 public emergency buttons usually reach several stations at once and bridge up to 48 hours of power outage with a backup battery. The backend deliberately runs locally and redundantly rather than in the cloud.

Secure Device Identities with PKI

The more devices on the network, the more important it becomes which of them may connect. R. STAHL issues around 8,000 certificates to phones, access points, servers, mobile devices and machines from a central PKI appliance and validates them with a high five-digit number of checks per hour. Certificates instead of passwords are the foundation of any zero-trust architecture and of IoT security at scale.

What Sets IoT in Telecom Apart from Other Industries

In hardly any other industry does scale dominate like this. A solution that works in a pilot with 50 sensors later has to carry hundreds of thousands of endpoints, with device management, over-the-air firmware updates and automated certificate rotation.

Then there is regulation. Telecom networks and data centers are critical infrastructure, and many operators fall under NIS2 and national energy efficiency rules. IoT components therefore need secure bootstrapping, encrypted communication and traceable access rights, and their data has to hold up as evidence for authorities and customers.

How to Start an IoT Project in a Data Center or at Network Sites

• Start with one metric: PUE, outage minutes, site visits per location or cooling energy cost. It determines which data you need.
• Take stock: which data do building management, UPS and cooling already provide via Modbus, SNMP or BACnet? Retrofitting is often enough, as at NTT DATA, where existing I/O cards were kept.
• Choose connectivity per site: wired inside the data center, NB-IoT, LTE-M or LPWAN in the field, 5G where bandwidth matters.
• Start small, plan for scale: one data center, one site cluster, one metric. Design device management and security from day one so they also carry the rollout.

Real-World Examples and Providers from the IoT Use Case Network

Further down this page you will find all solution examples assigned to this industry, with users, technology providers and the technologies used, from data center cooling and control cabinet monitoring to smart meter gateways and 5G remote maintenance. Every example shows which problem was solved and what came out of it.

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