While, with a general election looming, it may not amount to anything more than good intentions, Daniel Knight, Technical Director of UK-based smart technology provider, Fibaro UK, offered his opinion on the announcement.
“The key determinant of the effectiveness of the 2015 budget’s £40m investment in IoT will not be the amount of the investment, but how that amount is spent. The pre-budget also earmarked £600m for improving broadband and mobile connectivity, about this Knight added: “Infrastructure is absolutely critical. Considering 16% of UK households still have no internet of any kind, Osborne’s pledge to ‘bring ultrafast broadband of at least 100 Mbit/s to nearly all homes in the country’ in another step in the right direction. Without adequately connected homes and businesses the whole idea of the Internet of Things becomes a moot point.”
Gov’t pledges £40m to IoT
The UK’s out-going coalition government’s Chancellor, George Osborne, has pledged £40m in research in to the IoT as part of a larger £140m figure aimed at funding developments in science and innovation.