M2M: Embedded Mobile

M2M (machine-to-machine) communications technology has wide potential in domains ranging from industrial plants and warehouses to smart buildings and even consumer homes. Indeed, this “internet of things” is fast becoming an operational reality, with Ericsson predicting 50 billion connected devices by 2020, and Forrester research projecting that the number of mobile machine sessions will be 30 times higher than the number of mobile personsessions come that year.

Having been a regular at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for the last five years, the growing importance of M2M communications was in evidence at the recent 2010 event (February 15-18), alongside other highlights such as the rise of the mobile internet thanks to players like Google andApple.

For instance, the mobile industry’s GSMA (GSM Association) has now coined its own term for M2M: “Embedded Mobile”. And in Barcelona, the GSMA announced an embedded mobile program aimed at vertical markets such as consumer electronics,healthcare, automotive and utilities.

The association, together with 25 telcos and other M2M players, published a set of industry guidelines to reduce design complexity in what continues to bea hugely fragmented market.

According to Juniper Research, revenues from mobile-connected M2M and embedded devices will rise to US$18.9 billion globally by 2014. Its report, Embedded Mobile & M2M Strategies, covers applicationssuch as building security and utility metering.

Among large industry players, Vodafone announced that it will work with Verizon Wireless and nPhase, a joint venture of Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm, in global M2M over mobile, with an emphasis on an international managed service acrossmultiple countries.

The nPhase platform, which integrates with the Vodafone M2M global service platform, will provide customers with management tools to provide a single view of their international M2M deployments. It will reportedly offer a single point of contact for provisioning devices that are connected to both operators’ networks. The plan is to provide a single invoice and a single point of contact for technical andother support.

“M2M technology is playing an increasingly key role in helping firms to deliver more customisedservices, but the difficulties of managing devices on a global level was stopping the sector from realisingits true potential,” according to Erik Brenneis, globalhead of M2M, Vodafone.

Deutsche Telekom is to set up a new M2M International Competence Centre in Bonn, according to research firm Ovum. And T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom’s cellular arm) says it is making good progress with M2M deployments as part of its Connected Work strategy in Germany, where it is working with both BMW and Continental for the automotive sector. Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile have also signed a deal with Italian headquartered M2M specialist firm Telit Wireless Solutions as wellas China’s Huawei for product co-development.

Giants like Intel and Nokia are also looking at industrial applications of mobile M2M. Other players to watch in M2M space include Telenor Objects, iRex, and Wavecom. Telenor Connexion, a whollyowned unit of Telenor, is reportedly in talks with Malaysian carmakers, including Proton Holdings, tooffer its M2M service.

On the software side, the Mobile World Congress featured an interesting M2M Studio, a fully integrated development environment for the creation of M2M and automotive products. The studio integrated previously isolated tools such as the source code editor, project build wizard, target download, tracesemulator and development tool chain.

And as for M2M hardware, Digi International has announced that Massa Products Corporation is using its XBee RF modules to enable M2M wireless remote access to storage tank information. The module is integrated into Massa’s M3 battery-operated wireless tank level sensor and features the necessary driversfor easy deployment into challenging environments.

The solution includes the hosted software and services necessary to rapidly build applications for connecting and monitoring remote tanks of liquids, solids and gases, and help customers to accessinformation at distributed facilities.

According to research firm WTRS, until recently, the industry lacked the capability to provide a vertical suite of development tools to assist companies unfamiliar with wireless technology in the development, integration and deployment of wireless sensor network functionality. But now, many of the M2M module manufacturers have achieved competitiveness with their products in terms of both pricing and performance, and this will enable the overall market for wireless sensor networkcomponents to expand.