The Internet of Things (IoT) embraces everyday objects that interoperate and communicate with one another. Applications range from local user centric applications to applications supporting the operations of large-scale systems such as the Smart Energy Grid and Smart City systems. The IoT can be seen as a distributed, and possibly large, system for the  acquisition, communication and processing of data from a variety of sources and for disparate purposes. As the number of interconnected devices grows, the development of efficient communication protocols becomes increasingly critical to support IoT operations while coexisting with other incumbent services. The next generation of wireless networks will allow low-latency Gigabit communications, thus enabling this new range of large scale IoT applications. Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication is a key component of this architecture, facilitating the interoperation of devices and algorithms.