Key connectivity requirements for Industrial IoT in real-world deployments

Often higher in retrofit scenarios due to cabling, routing, and installation labor

Often lower and faster to deploy in retrofit scenarios, especially where cabling is difficult, access is constrained or downtime is expensive

Lower flexibility once installed; changes may require rework or additional cable runs

Higher flexibility for phased rollout, asset additions and layout changes, with less disruption to existing operations

Can be very low, especially in fixed infrastructure designs

Often suitable for many condition monitoring and monitoring/control use cases, depending on architecture, update rates and network design

Can be very strong where cabling is practical, protected and maintainable

Can be highly reliable when designed for the environment, with network design, redundancy and propagation planning aligned to the use case

Expanding coverage can require significant and costly wiring, installation time and physical access

Often easier to scale physically, but scalability depends on architecture and how the network handles growth in traffic and device count

Mature controls available, with performance depending on implementation, segmentation and operational discipline

Strong security is achievable, with modern cryptography and good lifecycle management, especially when commissioning and key management are handled well at scale

Physical infrastructure may be stable once installed, though changes, faults or cable damage can be prohibitively costly to locate and repair

Less cable infrastructure to maintain, with service planning focused on power strategy, device health visibility and network diagnostics

Fixed installations, deterministic requirements, accessible infrastructure, greenfield builds

Retrofit, distributed assets, phased rollouts, hard-to-cable locations, and environments where installation speed and adaptability matter