When IoT Fails
Much of our hardware, such as vehicles, can last more than 15 years while cellphones and computers last 5 years or less. What happens when long-life devices embed shorter-life components? You may, as some users are finding out to their cost, be left up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Network support for embedded old-tech cellphone modems have been or are being shut down. You need to figure out what may stop working and what its impact might be. You need a risk mitigation plan – before you need that paddle.
Business IoT

In the ‘90s, a new term entered common language – The Internet of Things (IoT). Devices with sensors could communicate with remote controllers via ‘The Cloud’. Much of the early focus was in domestic appliances but business applications soon followed. Examples include:
- Services, like OnStar, allowed tracking a fleet of vehicles, issuing remote commands to unlock (where the user locked the keys inside) or even stopping a stolen vehicle on command from a following police car.
- Medical devices could relay real-time data about sleep patterns or blood sugar levels back to doctors and allow insulin dosage to be adjusted.
- Haulage firms could monitor the location of their shipping containers and the internal conditions – to ensure perishable goods were kept well.
- Municipal traffic lights could be monitored and controlled.
- Vending machines could monitor equipment function as well as validate card transactions in real-time.
- POS field units used by delivery drivers could do card processing at client locations using cellular access to internet.
- Security alarms – many now use embedded cellular links rather than wired landlines.
- Fire Alarms can have cellular as a backup to cover against landline failures due to power outage.
- Surveillance video systems, remote from the main office building, can use built-in cellular links, either as a main path or as a backup to a primary internet connection.
Communication Failures
These IoT devices need 2-way communication to connect with their controllers across the internet. Some devices use local WiFi or Bluetooth, while others have embedded cellular or satellite links. The problem arises with embedded cellular data links of an older vintage. Early generation units used 2G (GPRS data) and 3G. When cellular operators shut down older cellular technologies to reuse the frequencies for 5G service, embedded systems that use the old technology will cease to function.
That has happened for 1G and 2G, and 3G is part way through this process. 3G was mostly shut down in the US in 2022 with Canadian carriers identifying December 2025 as an end date for the remaining systems. Cross the border into the US, or venture into a Canadian region where 3G is terminated, and you will be without service. Until then, regard 3G network devices as living on borrowed time and plan to replace them at the earliest opportunity.
As an example, some vehicles as new as 2019 may contain older 3G telematics technology. Some can be field upgraded by replacing a communications module – but not all. Nissan recently informed all owners of first-generation Nissan Leaf electric cars that their telematics systems, which users use to pre-warm (or cool) the car, would soon no longer work – and offered no fix. This loss of functionality may extend to navigation systems, which rely on access to cloud systems like Google Maps.
Other Failure Modes
It is not just the data link itself. Embedded systems communicate back to servers to work their magic. Those servers must be kept up to date by the service provider. Home automation devices sold with a ‘Lifetime Subscription’ by Revolv were rendered useless after Google Nest bought Revolv and subsequently shut down the legacy servers. This exposed a different perception of ‘lifetime’ when Nest simply defined the older devices as ‘end of life’
Required Action
To put it simply, you need to identify whether you have any active IoT devices that contain embedded 3G cellular. This is easier said than done. Our recommendation is to develop an IoT layer for your network diagram, then investigate each device to determine how it communicates back to its control system servers over the internet. If communications depend on embedded 3G cellular, then you need to look into upgrade or replacement options.
If you’d like to discuss developing an IoT network drawing layer, or to comment on this article, please email me at peter.
This article was published in the
April 2024
edition of The TMC Advisor
- ISSN 2369-663X Volume:11 Issue:3
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