Machine-to-Machine Communication

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is absolutely right. He does well to remind us that although we shall be connecting machines, we have not yet connected everybody. Given the limits that have been set on mobile spectrum availability, he would not want to share it with trillions of devices, as I shall explain. Machine-to-machine communications enable the internet of things. Ericsson estimates that by 2020, 50 billion things will be connected to the internet. Other analysts put the number of connected devices in the trillions. What will these devices be doing? Some will be doing what they already do; there will BlackBerrys and iPads, but we will also see, for example, lamp-posts with sensors that detect the level of light and save energy by turning themselves off. We will see smart fridges telling our chosen supermarket that more vegetables are needed. We will see water heaters monitoring the water temperature and deciding that it could be a little less hot for a few minutes because we are stuck in traffic and the national grid is overstretched. We may even see cholesterol monitors embedded in our bodies telling the doctor that it is time for another check-up. As a self-confessed technophile, I see the internet of things helping to take the dull and the difficult out of our lives so that we can get on with what human beings do best—whatever that may be.