The role of 5G wireless networks in the internet-of- things (IoT)

Abstract

The number of mobile hosts that will be used in 2020 will be exceeding 50 billion hosts [5]. This increase in the amount of mobile devices is intersected with the evolution of the Internet of things (IoT) technology. The demand to create intelligent environments such as smart cities and smart homes is increased. The evolution in this area results on the concept of IoT where devices of everyday are connected [5]. These interactions between a large numbers of heterogeneous devices increase a substantial demand on providing high connectivity, extremely high data rates, low latency, designing special applications to serve the IoT and many other communication requirements [8]. Thus, the promising 5G cellular networks can be considered as the key enabler for IoT technology. Moreover, the 5G wireless networks can be used to achieve the high communication requirements of the IoT. This survey is conducted to investigate the role of 5G cellular networks in the evolution of IoT. Also, this survey aims to compare existing wireless networks to emphasize the role of 5G as enabler driver for IoT. This survey highlights both requirements and enabling technologies of the IoT. Furthermore, it discusses some of the challenges that face the evolution of IoT.