Re: Am I completely missing the point?
why can't these non-defined 'things' use the existing infrastructure of wired broadband and non-wired internet already blanketing the country?
Good question. The main answer is very low power devices. Don't think about consumer devices (they will be connected to the mains, or be rechargeable). Think about devices that are installed somewhere (inside a water meter, in a river, around the neck of a cow, on a container when it ships from China) and never touched. There are many use cases which only need to transmit a few bytes a day but need to last for many years without being touched.
Current mobile phone protocols can't support these sorts of devices. NB-IoT can (that is what the NB bit is about) but it doesn't exist yet. SigFox and LoRaWAN are trying to get up and running with blanket coverage before the mobile phone companies can roll out NB-IoT. Being first to market obviously puts them in a strong position (although there are also significant technical, and commercial business model, differences between the solutions).
[Full disclosure: my employer sells some of these technologies, although the above is my personal opinion only]
Biting the hand that feeds IT
