Submitted by Elizabeth Coyne, Managing Editor of Light Reading and responsible for driving the curriculum and direction of Upskill U.

The Internet of Things universe is set to explode over the next few years. As such, service providers and industry players are jockeying for leadership spots in an all-IP ecosystem that promises ubiquitous connectivity for businesses and consumers.

That ecosystem goes beyond IoT devices to include applications, platforms, low-power, wide-area network (LPWA) connectivity services and standards, security, data and analytics and more -and raises more questions than it answers. While IDC forecasts the market to hit$7.1 trillion by 2020 and Gartner says 6.4 billion connected devices will be in use this year, haste may make waste when it comes to rushing into the IoT market due to serious concerns around security and network readiness.

To address the IoT challenges and provide some guidance, Light Reading and Cisco are tackling the topic in the next round of classes on Upskill U, a free online university aimed at upskilling and reskilling the communications industry on a variety of key topics essential to success in the virtualized, software-based future.

Our powerful IoT line-up includes a number of industry experts, including:

IoT 101(Wednesday, May 4, 1:00 p.m. ET): This introductory course taught by Martin Zander, Vice President, Ericsson Group Function Strategy, covers all the important aspects of IoT, including what it is, why it's important, how it's affecting the industry, the challenges and benefits and more, and lays the groundwork for future courses on IoT.

IoT: Tackling the Security Challenge(Friday, May 6, 1:00 p.m. ET): During this course, Jason Porter, Vice President, Security Solutions, AT&T, looks at the various ways to ensure IoT security, including creating partnerships and ecosystems, digital signature and authentication, device management and prevention policies to build security in from the ground up.

IoT: Evolving Networks to Meet the Opportunity(Wednesday, May 11, 1:00 p.m. ET): In this lecture, Timothy Winters, University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), covers how operators' networks will need to evolve in order to address this diverse IoT opportunity, and addresses key questions as to how accelerating NFV and SDN will enable IoT configuration agility and smart service flexibility for vertical industries, as well as challenges in the transition to virtualization.

IoT: The Impact of Industrial IoT(Friday, May 13, 1:00 p.m. ET): Jim Kilmer, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, will discuss how CIOs become the essential linchpin to ensuring secure connectivity and the management of data to provide the insights necessary for product and service development and delivery. This course will also cover how service providers can work most effectively as partners in this process to be vital players in this landscape.

With the latest debate around proprietary and/or open IoT LPWA that use unlicensed spectrum, you'll want to register for all four courses to keep up with the quickly changing IoT landscape -and sign up for our next round of classes on cloud at the same time. I look forward to seeing you all on the Upskill U message boards.

For the complete Upskill U schedule, visit our website at www.lightreading.com/upskillu.