This timely book addresses its topic both in research and in operational environments. With more and more devices and utilities connected to the Internet, a plethora of communications protocols, middleware, proprietary solutions, and open standards are used to seamlessly connect a large variety of “things.” With the Internet protocol (IP) seen as the converged and future infrastructure, current engineering needs to cope with the existing protocols, as well as address future IP-related compatibility.

The word “things” can represent anything. It can mean a smartphone connecting over Bluetooth or 3G networks, an industrial control system (ICS) leveraging supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)-specific protocols (ModBus, BACnet, or LonWorks), or even smart utilities such as, for instance, smart meters connected to smart power grids. In such a heterogeneous technology landscape, a larger view of the different components is easily lost, and a newcomer can be overwhelmed by the many different puzzle pieces making up the current Internet of Things.

This book manages to fill a niche in the existing literature. Although several European Union (EU)-funded research projects have addressed this topic, this book is the first comprehensive overview and introduction. Hersent et al. have succeeded in writing an introduction that is both very technical and down to earth. The book is also an outstanding reference for numerous communications protocols and network infrastructures.

In each of the book’s five parts, the authors focus on a specific communication layer. The first part addresses the physical layer, IEEE 802.15.4, and powerline communications, while the second part covers well-known ICS protocols. Part 3 presents legacy solutions (M-Bus, serial protocols, and representational state transfer (REST) based), describing their history, detailed protocol elements, and deployment scenarios. The current state of the art (IPv6 over low-power wireless personal area networks (6LoWPAN) and machine-to-machine (M2M) architectures) is covered in the fourth part. For interested readers, the chapter on 6LoWPAN is an excellent introduction to the RPL protocol and its underlying algorithms.

I especially appreciated the fifth part of the book, in which the authors consider some typical application cases, ranging from smart utilities to electric vehicles.

The technical content is accurate, timely, and up to date with respect to the state of the art in the field. The book is strongly recommended for engineers, academic researchers, and network operators dealing with the Internet of Things. For these readers, the book represents a valuable and authoritative source of information and reference.