Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) connections are in for massive growth along with the Internet of Things, according to a new report from Pyramid Research. The tech market research firm predicts that such connections will grow from 20 million in 2014 to 861 million by the year 2020, when they’ll account for 55 percent of all IoT connections.

These connections will initially take advantage of unlicensed spectrum, with North America and Western Europe being the regions driving growth until 2018. That year, the Asia-Pacific region will become the major driver of “huge volume growth”, according to a Pyramid Research synopsis, and MNOs will start to involve themselves in the LPWA market as 3GPP LPWA standards start to become widespread.

The trends dovetail somewhat with other recent predictions about growth in IoT markets such as that of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, and also help to illustrate the myriad growth opportunities associated with the Internet of Things in general. Moreover, Pyramid Research’s report highlights once again the importance of standardization in the IoT, given the major growth predicted for LPWA connections once industry standards gain substantial prominence. The development of such standards may also offer corollary opportunities for the biometrics industry, whose technologies could offer useful solutions for securing LPWA networks.