M2M Now Magazine Feb-March 2012 Edition

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TALKING HEADSTIBCO's three keys to M2M success: Scale, Granularityand Actionable Intelligence

TALKING HEADSTIBCO's three keys to M2M success: Scale, Granularityand Actionable Intelligence

NFC’sBREAKTHROUGHYEAR35m NFC handsetsshipped in 2011

NFC’sBREAKTHROUGHYEAR35m NFC handsetsshipped in 2011

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P R O F I T F R O M A W O R L D O F C O N N E C T E D D E V I C E S

M2M Now: ISSN 2046-5882

F E B R UA R Y- M A R C H 2 0 1 2

V O L U M E 2 I S S U E 1

M2M PREDICTIONSFOR 2012Reputations are onthe line as expertsshare their forecasts

M2M PREDICTIONSFOR 2012Reputations are onthe line as expertsshare their forecasts

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Swedish MVNO Maingate plans for M2H • See Our New Column: TheContract Hot List • From Jazz to Seoul: Events in M2M • Gemalto buysSensorLogic: Insider comment inside • Contract, Market, People &Product News • More News & Videos at www.m2mnow.biz

…& SMART SERVICESEXCLUSIVE: Interview with

Vodafone’s Head of M2M

M2M ECOSYSTEMSAre wireless operators ready and

willing to open up their APIs?

EXPERT OPINION:CUSTOMER CARE

Train your Customer Services todeal with knowledgeable clients

…& SMART SERVICESEXCLUSIVE: Interview with

Vodafone’s Head of M2M

M2M ECOSYSTEMSAre wireless operators ready and

willing to open up their APIs?

EXPERT OPINION:CUSTOMER CARE

Train your Customer Services todeal with knowledgeable clients

2 OPERATOR CASE STUDIES:SMART CITIES …

Telefónica gives a Green Lightto M2M in cities of the future

2 OPERATOR CASE STUDIES:SMART CITIES …

Telefónica gives a Green Lightto M2M in cities of the future

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C-LEVELVIEW: M2H

30

36

TALKING HEADS12

19

EXPERT OPINION:CUSTOMER SERVICE

BARCELONAEVENT PREVIEW

CONTENTS

M2M Now February - March 2012 3CONTENTS

Check Out Our Website!www.m2mnow.biz

Cover Photo: Inderjeet Singh, SVP & GM,Products and Technology at TIBCO Software.

TIBCO Software, Inc (NASDAQ: TIBX) is a provider ofinfrastructure software for companies to use on-

premise or as part of cloud computing environments. Whether it's efficient claims or tradeprocessing, cross-selling products based on real-time customer behaviour, or averting a crisisbefore it happens, TIBCO provides companies the two-second advantage™ – the ability tocapture the right information, at the right time and act on it pre-emptively for acompetitive advantage. More than 4,000 customers worldwide rely on TIBCO to manageinformation, decisions, processes, and applications in real-time. TIBCO Spotfire® is thecompany's in-memory analytics software for next generation business intelligence. Byoffering a visual, interactive experience, Spotfire® helps professionals quickly discover newand actionable insights in information. Learn more at http://spotfire.tibco.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, stored,published or in any way reproduced without the prior written consent ofthe Publisher.M2M Now is distributed free to selected named individuals worldwide whomeet the Publisher's terms of Circulation Control. If you would like to applyfor a regular free copy supplied at the Publisher's discretion visitwww.m2mnow.biz If you do not qualify for a free subscription, paidsubscriptions can be obtained. Subscriptions for 4 issues per year cost £48.00worldwide (or US$79 / €59) including post and packing. M2M Nowmagazine is published 5 times a year.

© WeKnow Media Ltd 2012

Send your News to the Editor:[email protected] • www.m2mnow.biz

CONTENTS 3

COMMENT – by the Editor 4 The tortoise and the (grey) hair

MARKET NEWS 5Gemalto buys SensorLogic; Axeda & ClearConnex partner

PRODUCT NEWS 6Turkcell leads in child safety; Telit AppZone aims to cut costs

PRODUCT NEWS 7Arkessa aggregates dashboard info; Qualcomm wears a new Halo

CONTRACT NEWS 8 Isis deploys m-payment & NFC in US; CSL and Jasper accelerate TTM

THE CONTRACT HOT LIST 9 Our unrivalled new column lists major contract announcements

PEOPLE NEWS 10Maingate CEO joins M2M Now Advisors; Plus RACO, VSS, and SkyCross

EVENT DIARY 11What’s on in M2M and connected devices across three continents

TALKING HEADS 12Actionable intelligence and scale are keys to M2M success, says TIBCO

OPERATOR CASE STUDY #1 15Vodafone’s head of M2M talks Exclusively to us about its Smart Services

C-LEVEL VIEW: M2H 19Swedish MVNO, Maingate tells M2M Now about machines-to-humans

OPERATOR CASE STUDY #2 23We report from Barcelona as Telefónica shows off its new Digital division

EXPERT OPINION: 26 Telco giant Alcatel-Lucent prepares to ‘up’ its profile in M2M

M2M ECOSYSTEMS 28 Ian Volans investigates mobile operators’ readiness to open their APIs

EXPERT OPINION: CUSTOMER SERVICE 30Good customer service is the key to a successful global M2M strategy

EXPERT OPINION: END-TO-END SERVICE 33The M2M whole has to be more than the sum of its parts, says Cinterion

BARCELONA EVENT PREVIEW 36Steve Rogerson tells you what to expect in M2M at Mobile World Congress

NEWS FROM MWC 39Even before the gates have opened we have the MWC News for you

2012 PREDICTIONS 41Reputations are on the line as some brave souls forecast M2M’s future!

This issue (our biggest yet) marks the start of our secondyear of publication and before anything else I want tothank you, our readers and business partners, for yourphenomenal support. We all wish you every success in2012. Meanwhile, we’ve all seen the exciting and sometimesincredible forecasts for M2M’s projected growth (if youhaven’t, just type ‘forecast’ into the Search Engine atwww.m2mnow.biz). It would be unwise to take them all at facevalue and assume that nothing can hinder the meteoric rise ofM2M-related profits. I still remember the similarly fancifulforecasts for Mobile Data service revenues and profits thatcontributed to ludicrous spending on 3G licences.

Well, you know what happened there! Some data services wereover-hyped by operators haring off in search of new revenuesbefore ensuring that their offerings were ready for marketing.The content on offer was ‘protected’ from users withinWalled Gardens (supposedly a good thing!), and this wasdone by operators who couldn’t quite piece together thejigsaw of Content Developers, Open Access, Digital Rights,3G Devices, and Billing.

After that lesson, any service providers who count on volume growth but only offer proprietary devices, platforms and privatenetworks, building data siloes for services that cannot scale or share business intelligence, deserve everything they get. I just hopethere are enough tortoises or ‘grey hairs’ still sharing these lessons within today’s mobile operators. And you’ll find some soundadvice on scale and actionable intelligence in our interview with TIBCO Software’s SVP & GM, Products & Technology, Inderjeet Singh(pages 12-14), as well as in Ian Volans’ excellent report (pages 28-29) on mobile operators and open, standardised ecosystems.Whatever your interest, we hope you find something valuable in this issue and online at www.m2mnow.biz

Jeremy Cowan, Editor, M2M Now * With apologies to Aesop’s [email protected]: @jcm2m

COMMENT

M2M Now February - March 20124 COMMENT

EDITOR & PUBLISHERJeremy CowanTel: +44 (0) 1420 [email protected]

DIGITAL EDITORNathalie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTORCherisse DraperTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

SALES MANAGERChris BeckTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

OPERATIONS & EVENTS DIRECTORCharlie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

DESIGNJason ApplebyArk Design Consultancy LtdTel: +44 (0) 1787 881623

CIRCULATIONCircdata Tel: +44 (0) 1635 869868

PUBLISHED BYWeKnow Media Ltd.Suite 28, 30 Churchill Square,Kings Hill, West Malling,Kent ME19 4YU, UKTel: +44 (0) 1732 897646

DISTRIBUTIONUK Postings LtdTel: +44 (0) 8456 444137

M2M Now is distributed free toselected named individualsworldwide who meet thePublisher's terms of CirculationControl. If you would like to applyfor a regular free copy supplied atthe Publisher's discretion visitwww.m2mnow.biz If you do notqualify for a free subscription, paidsubscriptions can be obtained.Subscriptions for 4 issues per yearcost £48.00 worldwide (or US$79/ €59) including post and packing.M2M Now magazine is publishedquarterly.

All rights reserved. No part of thispublication may be copied,stored, published or in any wayreproduced without the priorwritten consent of the Publisher

M2M Now: ISSN 2046-5882

© WeKnow Media Ltd 2012

Tony Jackson,Director, Telecoms,Convergys SmartRevenue Solutions

Marie-Paule Odini,HP CMS

Fergus O'Reilly,Chief SolutionExpert, SAPConsume to Cash

Baard Eilertsen,President & CEO, Maingate

Ann Hatchell,BridgewaterSystems

Erik Brenneis,Head of VodafoneM2M

John Aalbers,CEO, Volubill

Jeremy Cowan

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

The tortoise andthe (grey) hair*

NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF

M2M Now February - March 2012 5

MARKET NEWS

www.orga-systems.com

The Amsterdam,Netherlands-baseddigital securityspecialist, Gemaltoannounced onDecember 20 that ithas acquiredSensorLogic,confirming the reportand exclusive insidercomment by M2MNow on December10. Terms of the

transaction, which was structured as anasset deal, have not been disclosed.

SensorLogic was founded in 2002, and hadits main office in Plano, Texas. Thecompany developed a cloud-based,machine-to-machine service delivery

platform (SDP) allowing customers to build,deploy and manage M2M solutions in abroad range of applications, such as assettracking, telematics, and equipmentmonitoring and servicing.

The SensorLogic ‘platform as a service’(PaaS) approach reportedly enablesenterprises, mobile network operators,system integrators and M2M serviceproviders to bring services to market at afraction of the cost of a traditional in-housedevelopment. With Gemalto adding thisapplication development platform to therange of M2M modules from Cinterion(itself acquired by Gemalto in June 2010),Machine Identity Module cards andmanagement capabilities, and over-the-air(OTA) device management and securitysolutions, the security systems firm believes

it has a distinct offering for M2M.

Commenting on the transaction, Oliver Piou,Gemalto’s CEO (pictured), noted: “WithM2M, we continue to replicate our successfulbusiness model. Starting from advancedsoftware embedded in a device, we addremote management and then applicationsupport to provide superior performanceand differentiation to our customers.”

Sources within SensorLogic had confirmedto M2M Now that investors in the Boston-based company declined to extendadditional funding to the company. Staffwere laid off and its operations closeddown before SensorLogic was acquired forits SDP and intellectual property.

Full News at: www.m2mnow.biz

Gemalto confirms M2M Now’s report that it is buying SDP providerSensorLogic, after investors refuse to find $4m new funding

The US-based pairing of Axeda Corporationand ClearConnex, have formed an allianceto streamline the building and delivery ofwireless M2M solutions. Axeda provides acloud-based platform for managingconnected products and implementingM2M applications, while ClearConnex is anengineering services firm that provides aproven set of licensable software andhardware products as customisablebuilding blocks.

The Axeda® Platform now integrates with

the portable ClearComm wireless deviceagent, which is hardware-agnostic andsupports leading modems and modulesfrom companies such as Sierra Wireless,Maestro Wireless and GenX Mobile.ClearComm also supports custom devices,enabling the joint solution to communicatewith any device selected by the customer.

Bill Zujewski, EVP of product strategy andmarketing, Axeda Corporation, said:“ClearConnex … has unique expertise inhelping customers select the right module

or the right modem, as well as in buildingconnectivity into any device — ultimatelytaking the guesswork out of the processand speeding time-to-market for theirM2M solutions.”

Ryan Rangel, CEO of ClearConnex, replied:“Having out-of-the-box integration withAxeda reduces cost and time-to-market forour customers and enables them toimmediately take advantage of theindustry’s leading M2M applicationdevelopment platform.”

Axeda and ClearConnex partner to speed upM2M solution development and deployment

Oliver Piou,Gemalto: Superiorperformance

Global revenuesfor mobile locationplatforms ‘will reach €300min 2016’

According to researchfirm Berg Insight ofGothenburg, Sweden,the global market forlocation-based services(LBS) platforms andmiddleware will see

steady growth in the coming years, withdemand primarily driven by emergency call andlawful intercept mandates. Annual revenues

for mobile location platforms, including A-GPSservers and middleware platforms, areprojected to grow from about €150 million in2010 to €300 million in 2016.

Ericsson remains the leading vendor in terms ofnumber of contracts for location platforms,ahead of Nokia Siemens Networks andTeleCommunication Systems.

Governments and telecom regulators in manyparts of the world are introducing stricteremergency call and lawful intercept mandatesthat require network operators to invest inlocation platforms. These mandates typicallyentail accurate location of any handset

deployed and therefore require installationof network-based location technologies.

“Location-based services have gainedmainstream acceptance, enabled bybroader adoption of GPS-enabledsmartphones,” said André Malm(pictured), Senior Analyst, BergInsight. “All leading handsetvendors provide their ownassistance services for GPShandsets to ensure a gooduser experience in case theoperator has not yetdeployed A-GPS services.”

André Malm, BergInsight: LBSgained mainstreamacceptance

NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE

M2M Now February - March 20126

PRODUCT NEWS


Turkcell (NYSE: TKC, ISE: TCELL), Turkey’sleading communications and technologycompany, has announced the launch of asmart vehicle application, called TurkcellSmart Vehicle, that enables schools andparents to track school buses online in realtime. Turkcell Smart Vehicle is now beingused by 250,000 vehicles in Turkey.

Now parents can easily know if or whentheir children board or alight from theirservice bus, as well as where the bus is atany time, and when it is due to arrive at its

destination. Parents are sent an SMSnotification based on their preferenceswhen the school bus approaches itsdestination.

Since the status of buses is being tracked inreal time, with related individuals alertedwhenever the speed limit is broken, thesolution also incentivises bus drivers to drivesafely. In addition, the centralised controlsystem enables employers who use thissolution to save 30% on fuel and 10% onmaintenance costs.

Turkcell is the largest mobile networkoperator in the country with 34.1 millionsubscribers and a market share of 54% asof June 30, 2011*.

Turkcell ensures safe transportation for children via smart vehicle

Telit Wireless Solutions, a specialist inmachine-to-machine (M2M) technology,has announced the launch of TelitAppZone. Telit AppZone is an embeddedapplication space in Telit’s G30 GSM / GPRSmodule, enabling easy applicationdevelopment with industry standard Ccode. It eliminates the need for an externalCPU, RAM and ROM, further reducing sizeand cost.

The new platform is open and targets awide range of different products andverticals, such as remote monitoring andcontrol, security and surveillance, telemetry,

location services, billing, or fleetmanagement. Standard M2M solutionsrequire an external CPU connected to themodem in order to control it. Telit AppZoneshifts this capability into the module itself,reducing hardware cost and saving spaceon the PCB.

Normally, application development requiresdifferent languages for the modem and themicrocontroller. Telit AppZone is an openplatform providing standard interfaces(POSIX, BSD), allowing easy integration/porting of applications from a different OS/platform. It allows developers to implement/

port applications using their knowledge onopen software, libraries and protocols.

“The improvement in time-to-market withTelit AppZone is evident,” explainsDominikus Hierl, CMO at Telit WirelessSolutions. “We had an applicationdeveloper, who evaluated the G30 modulewith the Telit AppZone. In a conventionalenvironment, the evaluation would havetaken four to eight months. With TelitAppZone, the client managed to master thecoding, to assemble and develop thehardware application and to complete thetesting in only one month.”

Telit AppZone aims to lower cost and accelerate time to market

Vehicles featuring a SIM card can betracked by Turkcell via GPS.

* Source: Operator’s announcements, excluding impact of the change in pre-paid churn periods in Q2 2011.

TIBCO Spotfire 4.0 combines ‘free dimensional’ analytics with collective intelligence

TIBCO Software Inc. has launched Spotfire®4.0, the latest version of its analyticsplatform that combines the clarity ofvisual data discovery with collaborationcapabilities for improved decision-making. Enabling ‘free dimensional’data exploration at every level of anorganisation, Spotfire® 4.0 expandsthe traditional boundaries ofanalytics by delivering contextualand social collaborationcapabilities that put data

insights and findings within relevant businesscontext.

Featuring integration with Microsoft®SharePoint® and tibbr®, Spotfire 4.0 bringstogether interactive dashboards, in-contextanalysis, and ‘social discovery’ features todeliver claimed new levels of individual andcollective analysis.

“With Spotfire 4.0, we did not look atcollaboration as a collection of the latestsocial networking fads, but more as adecision-making process within a businessenvironment. The best decisions are alwaysmade in context and typically involve a group

of people who providevaluable insights,” saidLars Bauerle, vicepresident of productstrategy at TIBCOSpotfire.

“We’ve taken thatmodel and applied themost appropriatecollaborative features toenhance data analysisin a way that harnessesthe wisdom of thecrowd and speeds final decisions,”Bauerle added.

Lars Bauerle,TIBCO Spotfire:The bestdecisions …involve a groupof people

NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE I NEWS UPDATE

LogicPD and Wyless launch a newmodular M2M technology platform

Working closely with Wyless, Logic PD haslaunched Catalyst™, a modular technologyplatform that provides proof-of-concepttechnologies. Catalyst integrates the expertiseand products from a wide range of Logic PDpartners, including Wyless, to demonstratethe level of product innovation now availableand the benefits to a company’s bottom linethat can be achieved by streamliningtechnology integration.

Until now, many companies have struggled todesign and develop new products using

advanced technologies because their productsrequire longer lifecycles, a deeper level ofcustomisation than off-the-shelf consumerdevices can provide, or adherence to strictregulatory requirements. Many companies feelthey have no option other than to employsoon-to-be-obsolete technologies for theirproduct development needs.

Catalyst has been launched with the aim oferadicating this business issue. It providespersonalised offerings and supports longlifecycle design; its modular approachaddresses the complexity and sustainability ofdevices and includes hardware and softwaredeveloped under ISO 13485.

Wyless provides the connectivity for thesolution by bringing together multiplecarriers services. “One of the oftenoverlooked details of creating M2Mapplications is securing a cellulardata plan that operates with thedifferent cellular carriers wherethe M2M devices aredeployed,” said Kurt Larson,director of productmanagement, Logic PD.“Wyless addresses thisdifficulty by managing aglobal wireless datanetwork.”

www.orga-systems.com M2M Now February - March 2012 7

PRODUCT NEWS

The remote internetcompany, Arkessa,based in Cambridge UK,has built a web-basedsoftware application thatenables a multi-networkestate of M2Mconnections to bemanaged via a singlegraphical dashboard.

The dashboard is centralto Arkessa’s new M2M asset managementportal, Emport. This is claimed by thecompany to be the first portal that enablesmanagers to view, monitor and tune theirentire register of M2M connections at thesame time. Compatible with all networks

and operators, Emport joins existing estatesof connections, from within any country, tothe global or universal networks that provideworldwide coverage on multiple networks.

“Our goal was to make available the datathat M2M managers value most, and giveit to them instantly,” said Paul Green,director of marketing and technology atArkessa. “We also recognise the need tomake a system that’s flexible and intuitive.Emport is a vital and powerful tool formanagers that is incredibly easy to use.”

Filtering of the data stored within Emportreveals the information that is of value. Thisis achieved by interacting directly with theportal’s on-screen graphics. Interaction via

mouse clicks to pie and bar charts enableEmport to reveal instantly information thatis focused on chosen parameters, such asdevice groups, connections or geographicalareas of interest.

User-defined tags can be applied to eachconnection within Emport. This assists withthe identification of each connection, andenables the filtering into sets defined byusers. However, when more information isrequired than can be held within a tag,Emport can be directed to data held withina company’s own IT systems, so thatcontacts, service level agreements,emergency numbers and preferredcontractors, can be copied to user-definedfields and held within Emport for reference.

Paul Green,Arkessa:Flexible andintuitive system

Halo IPT’s wireless charging technology forelectric vehicles, developed by Arup andAuckland Uniservices, has been acquired byQualcomm Inc (NASDAQ: QCOM). The UK-based technology development companywas founded by Auckland University’stechnology development vehicle,UniServices, in conjunction with Arup andwith the support of the Trans TasmanCommercialisation Fund and the NewZealand Venture Investment Fund.

Since its inception in May 2010, Halo IPThas pioneered the development andproduction of wireless charging technologyfor the transportation sector. John Miles,

executive chairman of HaloIPT and aDirector at Arup, commented, “In only 18months, we have brought world-classuniversity research to the attention of theglobal automotive industry. Through reallyinnovative design, we have demonstratedthe huge potential for wireless charging tothe world’s leading vehicle manufacturers.”

According to Andrew Gilbert, Qualcomm’sEVP, European Innovation Development,“Qualcomm has been investing in wirelesspower for a number of years and theHaloIPT acquisition will further strengthenour technology and patent portfolio.Building off 20 years of development and

innovation in wireless power at theUniversity of Auckland and the globalexpertise and market knowledge at Arup,the HaloIPT team has established itself in arelatively short time as a leading developerin wireless electric road vehicle charging –with HaloIPT winning industry acclamationand awards.”

Qualcomm snaps up Halo for wireless electric vehicle charging technology

Emport gives M2M managers information about remote infrastructure in one place

Halo IPT’s EV charging technology hasbeen bought by Qualcomm

NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF I NEWS IN BRIEF

US medical centre uses smartphonesto monitor heart patients at home

Flagstaff Medical Centre (FMC) in Arizona,USA, has enrolled its first patient into a newprogramme, Care Beyond Walls and Wires, aninitiative that will extend the care of patientsbeyond the hospital or doctor’s office. Incollaboration with Qualcomm Inc, through itsWireless Reach™ initiative, Zephyr Technology,Verizon Wireless, and the USA’s NationalInstitutes of Health (NIH), Care Beyond Walls

and Wires uses 3G wireless technology andhealth monitoring devices to enhance the careof patients with congestive heart failure (CHF)or other related conditions.

Qualcomm is donating expertise and wirelessdevices to FMC. Zephyr is providing advancedhealth monitoring systems to patients, andVerizon Wireless is providing 3G-enabledMotorola Droid X2 smartphones. The NIH isassisting with project planning and evaluation.

The programme will collect and transfer criticaldata, such as weight, blood pressure, activityand other health indicators to nurses at FMC.Information will be sent daily for three to sixmonths after the patient’s discharge from thehospital. Healthcare professionals can therebyquickly detect a decline in patients’ health andintervene immediately, reducing unnecessarytravel, doctors’ visits, costs and readmissions tohospital.

Landis + Gyr help British Gas to meetEuropean CO2 emission targets

Landis + Gyr, a worldwide supplier ofmetering products, has begun aninitiative with British Gas to replace allits mechanical meters in the UK withsmart meters by 2019. Landis + Gyr isdeploying intelligent meters anddisplay devices to communicateover Home Area Networks (HANs).Radio modems and networkcontrollers extend the reach ofthe HAN to the energysuppliers’ management systemsvia a GSM network. Thisenables the consumers toview their energyconsumption in real time,and take actions to cutcosts, thus reducing theircarbon footprint.


CONTRACT NEWS


Isis, the mobile commerce joint venturebetween AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA andVerizon Wireless, has selected digitalsecurity service provider, Gemalto to secureits mobile commerce platform. This will bedone through Gemalto’s Allynis TrustedService Manager (TSM) solution, which isdesigned to provide consumers andmerchants with an open and secure mobilecommerce platform to revolutionise howconsumers shop, pay and save.

“We selected Gemalto for its long-standingrelationships with financial institutions andmobile operators, which include experiencein securely provisioning services over-the-air

and issuing sensitive financial informationto the consumer,” said Ryan Hughes, chiefmarketing officer of Isis.

“Gemalto’s dedication to security isunmatched in the industry and will providethe Isis Mobile Commerce Platform withthe necessary infrastructure to ensureconsumer and merchant confidence in theIsis Mobile Wallet,” he added.

Isis aims to enable consumers to enjoy thespeed, security and convenience of mobilecontactless payment using NFC technologyat retail outlets such as restaurants, movietheatres and drug stores. Consumers will

be able to securely pay, present loyaltycards, and redeem coupons all with a tapof their phones.

Gemalto is a leader in electronic passportsand identity cards, two-factorauthentication devices for onlineprotection, smart credit / debit andcontactless payment cards, as well assubscriber identification modules (SIMs)and universal integrated circuit cards(UICC) in mobile phones. It is alsoincreasingly active in the M2M applicationssector, where Gemalto is a supplier ofwireless modules and machineidentification modules (MIMs).

Isis chooses Gemalto to deploy mobile payment and NFC services in the US

CSL, Hong Kong-based mobile servicesprovider, and Jasper Wireless, a provider ofconnected devices platforms for M2M, areto connect and support a host of emergingenterprise and consumer devices. Thispartnership sees Jasper Wireless provideCSL with its software-as-a-service (SaaS)platform, offering the necessary tools toeliminate the complexity associated withprofitably connecting and managing newdevices.

Collaborating with Jasper Wireless enablesCSL to offer advanced automation and

control features across existing M2Mverticals and enter into the lucrativeconnected device market through itspremium and corporate brand, 1O1O.

“At CSL, we are dedicated to enhancingcustomer experience and driving the latestinnovations in technology,” said PaulHodges, EVP Corporate, Wholesale andInternational at CSL Limited. “Jasper’scomprehensive knowledge of global devicemanufacturers – their needs, theirlanguage and their challenges – offers ourcustomers the necessary tools to build and

grow a connecteddevice business.”

“The Jasper Wirelessplatform offers usthe necessaryautomation toenable plug-and-playsimplicity, offeringseamless connectivity straight out of thebox to ensure customers receive a superioruser experience, offered by our 1O1Obrand,” continued Hodges.

CSL and Jasper partner to cut complexity and speed market entry for new devices

Paul Hodges,CSL: Connecteddevice business

For more on all these stories go to www.m2mnow.biz

Rural care needed in Flagstaff, Arizona.

M2M Now February-March 2012

It's free to be included in The Contract Hot List (below), which shows the companies announcing recent contract wins or productdeployments. If your contract is not listed here just email the details to us now marked "Hot List" <[email protected]>

Vendor/Partners Client, Country Product / Service (Duration & Value) AwardedAgama Technologies A1 Telekom Austria Embedded Monitoring system for STBs extended to end-to-end service distribution 12.2011

Astellia TELUS, Canada Supplies unified service assurance system for 3G UTRAN and core data networks 10.2011

China Mobile 160 cities in 26 provinces, China Signed wireless city construction agreements; platforms constructed in 150 cities 11.2011

CWW, Silver Spring Networks UK Power Networks To be telcos partners for £9.7m (EUR 11.5m) Low Carbon Networks project 11.2011

DigitalRoute BTC, Bahamas MediationZone selected to support BTC's ongoing 4G and NGN projects 12.2011

Evolving Systems, Inc. Unnamed carrier, Russia Tier-1 wireless carrier implementing Dynamic SIM Allocation (DSA) solution 10.2012

Exmovere AT&T, USA Wirelessly enabling Exmovere’s patented biosensor baby pyjamas, Exmobaby 12.2011

Giesecke & Devrient Telefónica digital unit, Spain Agree to establish a single European-wide platform for NFC services 12.2011

INSIDE Secure BlackBerry® & other devices SecuRead® NFC system powering HID Global iCLASS® mobile secure identity 11.2011

Lantronix and Quadlogic Mall of America, USA Upgraded smart metering for accurate, real-time energy meter readings anywhere 12.2011

MACH MobiquiThings, France Provides data & financial clearing & settlement suite tailored to M2M environment 11.2011

Macheen, Inc. Three UK Enables 3 to embed own-brand 3G connectivity at point of device manufacture 12.2011

MasterCard, Network Int'l,

Oberthur, RIM Etisalat, UAE Announces cashless mobile payments system using NFC wireless technology 10.2011

Podsystem Retrieva, UK MultiNet Europe SIM cards selected for dog tracking collar & services in Europe 11.2011

Qualcomm, Zephyr, Verizon

& NIH Flagstaff Medical Centre, AZ, USA 3G technology and health-monitoring devices to care for patients out of hospital 12.2011

RACO Wireless OpenMotion, USA Enables wireless connectivity for ConnectNow custom gift card kiosk 1.2012

Subex Telekom Slovenije, Slovenia Selects Subex ROC® Fraud Management system for entire group 10.2011

Syniverse KT Corporation, South Korea Data & financial clearing, fraud detection, roaming agreement management 12.2011

Vodafone Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Preferred 3G connectivity provider for PlayStation Vita in Europe, Australia, NZ 11.2011

Vodafone Global Enterprise Logica, UK Accreditation for secure, reliable network enabling Logica’s Smart Data Service 11.2011

Key: 4G = 4th Generation mobile communicationsCSP = Communication Service ProviderCWW = Cable&Wireless WorldwideFPP = Flexible Plug and Play GPS = Global Positioning System

GSM = Global System for Mobile communicationsMVNO = Mobile Virtual Network OperatorNFC = Near Field CommunicationsNGN = Next Generation NetworksNIH = (US) National Institutes of HealthNZ = New Zealand

OTA = Over-The-AirRIM = Research in MotionSTB = Set Top BoxUMTS = Universal Mobile Telecommunications SystemUTRAN = UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network

THE CONTRACT HOT LIST:

M2M Now is soon to publish the mostcomprehensive Online Directory of companiesinvolved in machine-to-machine communicationservices worldwide. These include: ApplicationDevelopers, Connectivity Providers, Module &Terminal OEMs, Device & ComponentManufacturers, Gateway & Router Suppliers,Platform Providers, System Integrators, Analysts& Consultants. Any organisation directly involvedin M2M and connected devices can be listed.

Platinum listings give readers full ContactInformation (including Email and URL), and aresearchable A-Z, by M2M Market Segment, orIndustry Type. This will soon be available to the’000s of visitors worldwide who useM2MNow.biz – probably the world’sfastest-growing M2M website.

Register Online TODAY – Email: [email protected] Now – A World of New M2M Business

Make sure you’re listed in the 2012

M2M Now Directorywww.m2mnow.biz

PEOPLE NEWS

M2M Now magazine hasappointed anotherleading figure from theworld of machine-to-machine communicationsto join its EditorialAdvisory Board. Thepresident and CEO ofM2M-focused mobilevirtual network operatorMaingate, Baard

Eilertsen, joins other senior executives fromAmdocs, Convergys, Evolving Systems, HP,SAP, Vodafone and Volubill. A list of ourEditorial Advisors can be found athttp://bit.ly/vxE7VL

Commenting on the news, Jeremy Cowan,M2M Now‘s editorial director & co-founder,said: “As chief executive officer of Maingate,a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO)that has been dedicated to M2M services

since its launch in 1998, Baard Eilertsenbrings exceptional experience to the table.We are honoured to add his expertise to themany complementary skills already providedby our fast-growing Advisory Board. Welook forward to his input into our coverageof this dynamic sector and the excitingplans we have for M2M Now‘sdevelopment. M2M Now magazine andportal can now call on a body that is uniquein this sector’s media.”

Maingate CEO,Baard Eilertsen,joins M2MNow advisors

Maingate’s CEO joins M2M Now’s advisors

Over the last six months, RACO Wirelesshas added several new members to its teamwhich, says the company, now representsmore than 200 years of collective M2Mindustry experience. M2M veteran, EddieMeyersick recently joined the company as

its director of global accounts.

Meyersick will work with multiple globalcarriers to increase the widespread supportfor the Multi IMSI SIM project. This isdesigned to simplify global distribution of

M2M solutions and toallow companies toachieve their desire forone global stock-keepingunit (SKU) at a lowercost.

RACO Wireless signs Meyersick

EddieMeyersick:RACO Wireless’latest addition

SkyCross, a global antenna and radiofrequency (RF) systems company andprovider of advanced tunable antennatechnology for 4G mobile devices, hasannounced the appointment of Brian Hurstas vice president of worldwide sales. Withmore than 25 years of experience in wirelesstechnology sales, Hurst will be responsiblefor providing solutions for wireless devicemanufacturers’ complex antenna and RFchallenges, supporting delivery of 4Gdevices to consumers and businesses.

“Brian will play a key role in our growthplans for 2012 and beyond,” said BenNaskar, CEO and chairman of SkyCross. “Hehas an extensive background of success in

building and managing worldwide salesorganisations. His executive managementexperience with tier I device OEMs (originalequipment manufacturers) supports ourgoal of providing these companies with thehigh performance RF technologies they needto bring innovative mobile devices to market.”Prior to joining SkyCross, Hurst served asvice president of worldwide sales at WiSpry,Inc., RAYSPAN Corp., and PeregrineSemiconductor, where he established globalsales organisations and built customersupport infrastructure in South Korea,Taiwan, China, Europe, and the UnitedStates. Hurst previously led globalrelationships with strategic tier I customersat ANADIGICS, Inc.

“SkyCross tunableantenna modules for 4Gmobile devices leverageSkyCross patentedtechnology that leads thewireless industry. I ameager to pursueopportunities withmanufacturers to designwinning 4G wirelessdevices using theseunique, tunable antennasolutions,” Hurst said. “I look forward toexpanding the company’s businessrelationships and to driving revenue growthin each of our business regions around theworld.”

Hurst named as SkyCross’s new vice president of worldwide sales

VSS Monitoring, of SanMateo, California, aprovider of networkintelligence optimisationsystems, has appointedRob Markovich to therole of senior vicepresident, WorldwideSales and Marketing.

Markovich has expertise across network,applications and security management forenterprises, service providers andgovernment segments.

Previously, Markovich served as co-founderand executive at network service assurancepioneer, Visual Networks, helping it growfrom zero to US$100 million turnover in

four years and leading it in a successful IPO,then acquisition by Fluke Networks.Additionally, Markovich was co-founder andCEO of wireless management startupNetwork Chemistry (acquired by ArubaNetworks) and was CEO of enterprisemobility start-up Agito Networks (acquiredby Shoretel).

Markovich goes to VSS Monitoring

Rob Markovichmade an SVPat VSSMonitoring

Brian Hurst

M2M Now February - March 201210 www.orga-systems.com

DIARY

Mobile World

Congress 2012GSM AssociationFebruary 27-March 1, 2012Barcelona, SpainOfficial Media Partner: M2M Nowwww.mobileworldcongress.com

CeBIT 2012Featuring M2M ZoneMarch 6-10, 2012Hannover, Germanywww.cebit.de/home

The Future of Utilities

& Smart Utility ForumMarch 27-29, 2012London, UKwww.marketforce.eu.com/utilities

4G Device World 2012March 29-30, 2012W Seoul Walkerhill, Seoul, South KoreaOfficial Media Partner: M2M Nowwww.magenta-global.com.sg/4GDeviceWorld

The Mobile Show, M2MWorld & M-Health 17-18 April, 2012Madinat Arena, Dubai, UAEOfficial Media Partner: M2M Nowwww.terrapinn.com/2012/the-mobile-show

M2M Zone at CTIAWireless 20127-10 May, 2012New Orleans, Louisiana, USAOfficial Media Partner: M2M Nowwww.ctiawireless.com

Don’t forget to add the following events to your organiser.Event Diary Dubai, UAE

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

NFC prediction for 2012"...Take into account that as more and more NFC applications come to the smartphone and internet, themore identity-based security solutions will be essential to providing underlying assurance that ourlives won’t be compromised for the sake of convenience.” Mark Reeves, Entrust

News-led website and quarterlymagazine for machine tomachine communications

the latest news, reviews andinsights in the world of M2M

M2Mnow.bizProfit from a world of connected devices


Inderjeet Singh is senior vicepresident and general manager,Products and Technology atTIBCO Software, andresponsible for engineering allTIBCO Infrastructure Products.

TALKING HEADS

Here, M2M Now’s editor, Jeremy Cowan talks toInderjeet Singh, SVP and GM, Products and Technologyat TIBCO, about how M2M service providers can helptheir customers act on timely intelligence (whilemanaging exponential growth in sophisticated M2Mdevices and dynamic services) and provide diverse usercommunities with contextual mobility solutions.

M2M Now: Inderjeet, what do you see as the greatestchallenge today in instrumenting the machine-to-machine (M2M) domain?

Inderjeet Singh: The greatest M2M challenges are associatedwith increasing scale on the one hand and granularity on theother. Particularly, the sheer number and range of devices, thevolume of real-time events spawned by these devices, and theresulting number of composite services created through vastlevels of instrumentation. Driving a contextual, real-time,actionable response to this scale of instrumentation remainsthe fundamental challenge within M2M environments.

M2M Now: In the past, developments in M2M haveoften focused on enhancing the capabilities of devicesand platforms. But with the spread of services to newindustry verticals, there seems to be a torrent of datathat needs to be stored. It has to be analysed and actedon for M2M to be optimised. So how is TIBCO meetingthis need?

IS: In addressing your question, let me give you somebackground on TIBCO’s vision with respect to ‘optimisation’,not only to the world of M2M, but to all real-time domains.Our focus and capability are in TIBCO’s contention that havingall the information after a critical event has happened, hasmuch less value than having correlated, actionableinformation before the critical event has happened, when it

TIBCO Software Inc. provides real-time infrastructuresoftware for companies to use on-premise or in cloudcomputing environments to capture the right information,at the right time, and act pre-emptively for a competitiveadvantage, what they call ‘the two-second advantage’.Whether it's processing millions of smart meter events,interactively analysing diagnostics generated by personalmedical devices, or correlating numerous automobile operating

parameters, environments, and locations, TIBCO seeks toleverage contextual awareness to the business

environments of M2M.

TIBCO: Accommodatingscale, granularity forinstrumentation, andactionable, real-timeintelligence

can be used to affect the outcome of a critical eventrather than simply to plan better for the next event.

An ability to detect, understand, and react to patternsof critical events in real time drives our vision ofoperational intelligence or what we call ‘situationalawareness’. By making sense of these ‘event-rich’situations, we are able to provide an in-flight set ofactionable directives either to a pair of eyeballs,another application, or an orchestrated process. Thislevel of situational awareness, when brought to theworld of M2M, provides the inherently missing contextto deliver true value-added services to consumersacross the spectrum of business.

TIBCO’s legacy, as you probably already know, hasbeen as a real-time, integration company, connectingour customers’ mission-critical systems together. In thepast five years, we have taken this capability one stepfurther and have created an enterprise ‘event-enabledplatform’. In the M2M world, this is yet anotheriteration of need, a crying out for our event-enabledplatform.

We consume very large volumes of events, enrichthese elements with other data sources, and managethe resulting ‘situations’ in an in-memory data grid.Unlike a normal application server, this in-memorygrid, TIBCO’s event server, can apply methods,evaluate patterns, analyse data, and process directivesor decision routines all in real time. Naturally, we coupleour event server with our ultra high-performanceenterprise service bus (ESB) to accommodate thevolumes of events emanating across the M2M domain.

As we apply this architecture to the M2M world, weessentially connect devices over an ESB with billions ofevents exposed, managed, and administered within anin-memory data grid by master data managementservices. These data management services reconcileinformation, for example, device and customerinformation, location information, or delta changeinformation, inside the data grid in real time. Theevents server applies dynamic, rule-based complexevent processing (CEP) technology to impartunderstanding and correlate these events based onpatterns of instrumentation. This ultimately createsactionable domain and business intelligence at thespeed of events themselves, in real time.

Interestingly now, actionable events can be consumedand utilised by social technology environments – suchas our own social platform called tibbr. In tibbr, userscan subscribe to events in real time and also to‘pattern-based’ subjects that track and analysebusiness assets, activities, or processes, using ouractive business process management (BPM) engines.

To close the ‘virtuous loop’ on leveraging the M2Menvironment, TIBCO’s interactive analytics visualisationtool set, Spotfire, allows business users to take largevolumes of information and create interactivedashboards reflecting actionable intelligence withinthe high granularity of M2M environments. Withvisual analytics tools like Spotfire, the business usercan get direct insight into the data created fromcomplex infrastructure software without having toconstantly gain intelligence through reports from thetechnical side of the business.

M2M Now: Have you got any use case examples?

IS: The Smart Energy environment is an area whereTIBCO has been very active over the last few years. Anumber of global utilities combine the aspects of real-time M2M to give a picture of energy assets(distribution stations, feed profiles, energised and non-energised devices) to network engineers, technicians,and those responsible for energy grid stability,resilience, and intelligent demand-responsebehaviours.

Now, with mobile activated, this has a huge impactacross large geographic grid footprints, dynamicenergy management processes and highlyorganisational infrastructures. We are now leveragingthe same opportunities in the remote medicine andtherapy fields where again, large number of diverseconnected devices are ‘singing out’. These connecteddevices create real-time critical healthcaremeasurements with the concomitant requirement forreal-time intelligent evaluation and decision-makingon behalf of patients by their clinicians and primarycare givers.

Now, the same TIBCO platform applies to other non-classic M2M verticals. Let’s take an example in retail.You walk into a store, swipe your card and withinmilliseconds, the TIBCO event server receives amessage. The event server knows who you are (fromthe pattern profile that’s been stored in the data grid):your behaviour, your age, your spouse, and so on.Naturally, this process only occurs on an opt-in basis.The server matches your profile information againstthe current business environment such as: what goodsare sold fast, what goods are slow moving, inventoryat respective stores by location, the current weather,and your purchase history against these dynamicpatterns. The server appends bigger markers to thisinformation such as: what life events are coming up –your wife or kid’s birthday, a vacation you areplanning, or a graduation that’s impending.

Based on all these factors, marketing campaign ruleskick in, figuring out the next best offer that has thehighest propensity for success and can be intelligentlydelivered across the mobile device cloud. The net valueof this for retailers is the ability to increase theresponse rate, a tremendously transformative IToperation, and increase business benefits for not onlycustomers in terms of net sales, but also in moreefficient optimisation across the entire supply chain.

M2M Now: Much of this data will be uselessthen, if it’s not dealt with immediately. How canM2M service providers ensure that their datadelivery to clients and partners is timely andrelevant?

IS: TIBCO’s platform is absolutely critical; the ability tochange, to understand information in real time, toreact in real time. We believe the social environment –like Facebook, and Twitter – have led to a realisationthat disseminating this highly instrumentedinformation through social media might actually bethe best way to provide choice and decision advantageto a consumer base.

This is the province of tibbr, our enterprise socialnetworking platform. With tibbr, you can not onlymonitor people-based situations, but also subjects thatcan be defined across a portfolio of devices defined inthe M2M domain. tibbr can be run in a private or a

It’s all aboutdelivering aplatform thataccommodatesthe explosivegrowth ofdevices andservices withinthe M2Mworld, andsecurelyinteracts withevent andconsumers inreal time.


public environment; you can secure it yourself,disseminating the right information to the rightperson, in the right context, in the channel you prefer.

M2M Now: We’ve talked about the platform abit. TIBCO also talks about deriving context fromM2M. Can you explain?

IS: Information today consists of what happened andwhere it happened. If you know the customer’sbirthday is next week, or his anniversary is next month,that context is extremely important in regards to hispurchasing decisions. If you were simply looking at anevent in isolation you would not have this information.When you look at an event, surrounding information(historical, real-time, or enriched information fromother sources) drives context and intelligentconversation with the consumer, which is very hard todo without context.

M2M Now: So, in the real world, it’s about howyou turn raw data into actionable information?

IS: That’s right, yes. Filing a customer’s birthday oranniversary means nothing if you don’t use it incombination with purchasing history to make a veryappealing offer and drive a sale.

M2M Now: With a growing number of partnersin every M2M ecosystem, what steps shouldservice providers take to ensure that everyone intheir value chain can analyse service regardingcustomer and operational data?

IS: Service providers are usually reluctant to share thisinformation, often for reasons beyond their control.We help service providers publish the rightinformation over the right channel. That channelcould be an application on their Android phone oriPhone, a web channel, or a social channel (like a user’sFacebook wall).

The wrong way to approach this is to have a one-size-fits-all strategy in which the telco provider can say,“Look, this is exactly what I'm going to do, and that’sit.” They really want to give control to their customers,who can tell the company, “This is the way that I wantyou to interact with me and this is the data that I wantyou to feed me.” Rather than being hesitant to givecustomers any control, telco providers will now havedata on which channels individual customers will bemost receptive, a hugely important piece ofinformation based on personal preference.

M2M Now: And where in TIBCO’s experience is itbeing done well?

IS: Some telcos are in the early stages of doing thisprocess well, some in the US, and some in EMEA. TheTIBCO customers who realise social interactions withcustomers are valuable are the ones that are going toleapfrog the competition.

Simply looking at the provider and customerrelationship in a one-channel or two-channel fashionwon’t cut it. Consumers are looking for a social way ofinteracting with their services, which in the future willdrive customer satisfaction, cross-selling, up-selling,and providing personalised offers with a very highprobability of success.

M2M Now: And lastly, how can TIBCO help inmaking M2M service data actionable, not just forthe service providers and partners, but forcorporate end users? And can you give examplesof how this is being done?

IS: Extracting intelligence from this massiveaggregation of information is important. For example,you might get hourly updates from a million devices,when what you really need is a spend analysis for aparticular zip code in a particular period of time. Thatis something that a corporate user might like topursue in assessing geographic metrics of success ofdifferent business approaches.

A visual analytics platform like Spotfire (whichunderstands events through a large in-memory cache),becomes absolutely critical, as it can aggregate allthose individual hourly updates and present patterns andtrends in a visual fashion directly to the business user.

Here’s where it comes full circle. Extraction ofintelligence from immense data streams by a corporateend user will result in additional rules, creatingadditional intelligence that will be fed back into therules-based platform. For example, if a certain zip codehas higher than average data usage on weekends,then a created rule can automatically re-route capacityaccordingly. You don’t even have to know thatweekend data usage is high in this zip code becauseit’s a tourist hotspot. You only need to know thatcapacity must be scaled up on weekends and downduring the week, without extensive knowledge of thedemographics of each zip code.

This gives you much better intelligence without goingthrough any new IT projects or redeploying all of theselogical software relationships. Simply have IT implementthis new rule and dynamically change the behaviour ofthe application and your whole infrastructure.

M2M Now: Inderjeet, thank you.

M2M Jargon Buster

BPM = BusinessProcess Management

CEP = Complex EventProcessing

EMEA = Europe, Mid-East & Africa

ESB = EnterpriseService Bus

TALKING HEADS



M2M Now: Erik, what is the best way to assist smartmetering roll out?

Erik Brenneis: Let me tell you my and Vodafone’sview on this. Personally, I have worked in the smartmetering industry since 1999; I used to be headof sales for Landis and Gyr, the leader inelectricity metering. GSM technology has beenused in Europe in order to roll out manymeters both industrial and commercialmeters, in all countries. When you lookat the UK today a lot of the industrialand commercial meters in factories areread out over the public mobile network.Then there are also countries likeSweden, or the Nordic countries,Finland, Denmark, where they have seensignificant numbers of household metersrolled out with GSM inside, in NewZealand as well. That is where we seethe trends becoming stronger.

In order to read a smart metertheoretically there is different technologythat you can use. You can use the publicmobile network. You can use power linearea technology, sending the data overthe power line. Or you could install adedicated wireless or wired network.

Using the public mobile network makes alot of sense. The network is there and itis being managed professionally becausethere are a lot of applications, alsoindustrial applications, tracking cards –

Vodafone Group’s Head of M2M, Erik Brenneis talks exclusivelyto the Editor of M2M Now, Jeremy Cowan about the challengesfacing smart metering; open standards, power consumption,coverage, network quality and, of course, the technicalsolutions needed to provide and manage the data forutilities. Somehow, they also found time to talkabout cars.

Vodafone’s Head of M2Mdescribes the challenges andopportunities for smartmetering service providers

SMART METERING


even medicalapplications tracking

medical systems – whichare on the network and

which need to bemanaged on a day-to-day

basis. And there are clearstandards on the public mobile

network – GSM standards andothers. There are encrypting methods

for security that are standardised betweenall players. Due to this standardisation youalso find a large variety of communicationdevices that you can put inside a meter inorder to communicate with the network. So,

there is competition on a solution level in apublic mobile network.

Due to a standardised approach, you can choose amodule from Sierra Wireless, from Cinterion, from aChinese supplier, from anybody. On the network sideyou can choose Vodafone’s network, or O2’s, Orange’sor another one. And that is a true, open standardcompared to any other proprietary solutions out there.In the future that will always ensure that all thesolution’s components will be price-competitive.

M2M Now: The implication is that there is notcomparable competition in the other twoapproaches, either through power linecommunications or a dedicated wire technology?

EB: I think power line carriers, compared to a publicmobile network have different features. Technically,this doesn’t work very well on this network.Sometimes there is noise on the lines. There have beenprojects that don’t work so well with the datatransmission. It is usually relatively slow and limited interms of the bandwidth that you can send over thepower line.

If you just want to send meter registration data once amonth it could be sufficient. But if you want to thinkabout a future thing, like breakdown of the dynamicpricing in each moment in sending price informationto a customer display in the house, so that you knowat the moment the overall demand in the country isrelatively high, therefore I have to pay more for myenergy since we are a power carrier solution withtoday’s technologies and bandwidths nearly reachingits limit.

On a dedicated mobile network – as rolled out insome places in the US, by Silver Spring Networks forexample – one has to be aware that thecommunication modules are a proprietary technology.These are not standardised, open, proper codes. Thehardware that comes into these solutions will alwayshave to come from the party that provides the overallsystem.

It is not a true open stand where anybody can decide‘Okay, now I’ll make a communication module fromit’. Or, ‘Now I offer components for this solution’.

M2M Now: So, it takes us one step further awayfrom the longed-for standardisation rather thantaking us closer.

EB: Yes, that is my belief. It is really that somebody puta dedicated network in place with proprietarycomponents, even proprietary data models. Opennessis very important, and what follows from the opennessis competitive prices on all components of thesolution. It is also proven in the UK; we have millionsof consumers and devices on the network today, notbeing managed every day.

The encryption on GSM is also a standardisedapproach and is being developed on a proprietarynetwork; there could be a certain encrypting methodbut it is really up to the party who makes that networkto manage this. It is not something that lots of partiescontinue to develop in a structured approach, like inthe GSM Association.

In addition to that, the power consumption onmodules using the public mobile network is lowbecause it is being developed every day, not only forthis market but also for consumers using theirhandsets for other industrial applications.

We believe that all of these reasons and the bigprojects that are rolled out already in New Zealand,the Netherlands, and the Nordics have proved that thepublic mobile network is the best technology to readout these household meters.

M2M Now: Is there enough network capacity, notjust for Vodafone but for all public mobilenetwork operators? Many parts of the networkare already under intense pressure through thegrowth of data traffic. Now we’re talking about aquantum leap. I understand that M2Mcommunications are not always data intensive, butwe are talking about a vast array of devices.

EB: Yes, that is correct. We have spent a lot of timelooking into that. At the moment the main applicationin smart metering is reading out register values fromthe smart meter, providing alarms when a certain areaof the network is not available, and similar things.

We have a lot of test projects going on already. BritishGas are rolling out a (meter) type that wascommunicated last year and we are in the middle ofthis. Reading out the meter values is usually doneduring the night. When the meter operator comes inin the morning he will say, ‘Okay I have the valuesfrom these meters,” and then there is a certain list ofmeters where maybe the meter broke and so on. Then

SMART METERING


he looks into these meters and resolves the issues; thatis the normal process.

At night the network is not really stressed. Also wehave done a simulation for 30 million meters beingrolled out in the UK. Due to the low levels of data thatthey consume, for example when you compare it to aCCTV camera or a laptop user using mobilebroadband, this is really not something that stressesthe network – even assuming that all the meters in theUK go on our network. We can handle that, and wehave done further simulations.

M2M Now: So, you don’t anticipate that therewould be a great need for infrastructuredevelopment or expansion to accommodate asignificant upward growth in M2M traffic?

EB: We will continue to size our network – and we areinvesting £1 million pounds (€1.2 million) a day just inthe UK in our network in order to upgrade it forhigher demand. When you talk about the M2Mmarket as a whole, my answer is definitely ‘Yes’. Thatrequires the network to be scaled up because moreand more M2M applications do use high bandwidth.For example the security business is going more andmore into 3G or even 4G technology (LTE) which havevery high data rates. More applications are coming outlike CCTV cameras for private use, so that you canmonitor your home, that do use a lot of bandwidth.

Also car manufacturers are offering internet in theircars. That is also putting stress on the network, so weare sizing our network in order to handle this trafficfrom machine-to-machine.

But smart metering’s use of this is relatively low, evenif you have millions of meters out there.

M2M Now: The automotive sector is beingtouted as one of the areas most likely to seegame-changing growth, providing a new rangeof services to users. That might blow the datatraffic calculation out of the water mightn’t it,Erik?

EB: Well, I fully agree that the automotive market isbooming, both in terms of how many cars areequipped with M2M and also in how much bandwidththese new applications consume. Historically, theapplications in cars, in Volvo, Peugeot, and BMWConnected Drive, were mainly safety and securityapplications and not stressing the network very much.

Now, with internet in the car, the permanent dynamicdownload of information into the head unit in the caris an application. You are right, that puts more stresson the network. But we are wholly aligned with ournetwork team on the M2M side and we have providedour assumptions about increased M2M traffic coming

from such applications like cars, and that has beenbuilt into the investments that we are doing in orderto continuously upgrade our network.

M2M Now: I can see that Vodafone has asignificant advantage in this area with its widegeographic reach and partner networks,particularly in Europe but elsewhere as well. Howwell is Vodafone picking up roaming business,and where are you seeing competition comingfrom?

EB: One of our biggest advantages in M2M is ininternational projects where there is a carmanufacturer, for example, who says ‘I want to equipall my European cars with one SIM’. It should thenwork on our networks. Because all over Europe mostcountries have a Vodafone network. Where there isnot a Vodafone network we have a partner networklike Swisscom or Belgacom. That is a huge advantage.But it is not only the cost of roaming, it is also theability to manage the networks in the right way.

I will give you an example. When you have a premiumcar in BMW, manufacturers want this car to work in allthe networks and they don’t want the customer todrive into Switzerland from Germany and (find that)the things that work in Germany don’t work anymore. Because the customers will say ‘I spent £50,000on this car and now even this little thing doesn’t work.So, quality of service – in the sense that when theyhave a network problem, or when a car cannot bereached – is extremely important for a company likeBMW. They expect us, Vodafone, to take care of allissues that might arise, either on Vodafone’s networkor on a partner network.

M2M Now: Going back to smart metering, arethere other areas that you would single out asparticular challenges for 2012?

EB: The pan-European solution that has been soefficient for automotive unfortunately doesn’t reallyapply to smart metering, because by definition theseare local projects. I think what is key for a utility andalso for our partners, like Landis & Gyr, Itron, andLogica, is that we have a good and stable network.The coverage of the network is also important. Todaywe reach more than 98% of the population in the UK,and there are measures in place in order to push thatup to 99%. We also have an additional technology, ananalogue network called Pacnet with lowerfrequencies. So it reaches further, which we can use inplaces where there isn’t availability. Our target is toprovide 99.9% coverage for smart metering in UKhomes when the big roll out starts in two years.

Power consumption is always an issue. In gasmetering, for example, power consumption is evenmore of a discussion than in electricity meteringbecause the solutions in electricity meters usually usethe power line that is right there to take their power.In a gas or water meter it is the battery lifetime that isthe limiting factor for the solution.

There are smart GSM solutions for gas metering whichhave a battery life of more than 10 years. They do thiswith smart algorithms (governing) how you wake upthe communication module. It goes into very lowpower consumption in the meantime. That is whereGSM technology and communication modules arecontinuously improving. This is to do with fact thatsmart metering is not the only area for which thesedesigns are made. Smart metering profits here fromtechnical developments regarding battery life and thepower consumption of GSM communication modules.

It is the open standards, the power consumption, thecoverage and the quality of the network, and of

course it is the technical solutions and the system thatwe use in order to provide and manage the data fortheir utilities.

We in Vodafone have created our own M2M servicedelivery platform and that is a software system whichis separated from the traditional consumer systemwhich you will have if you use your phone on aVodafone network.

Why? The machine-to-machine space in smartmetering has different functionalities from mobileoperators. We need to be able to provide one invoicefor a million meters, for example.

We need to be able to provide statistics to a utilityabout how many megabytes each meter uses. You canset thresholds for example in our systems for a meter,in which you say, “If a meter consumes more than onemegabyte over a month, something must be wrong,because I am only sending register values back.” Thatwould indicate that there is a problem with one of themeters. Then an alarm is sent to the operator at theutility as soon as a meter consumes more than this.That helps them to better manage all their connectionsand make sure that they are always available.

Then we can do statistics for a utility about the usage,about how well their meters can be reached over theday, and so on. It is a dedicated system that we havecreated and that we have tightly integrated with ourpartners’ meter data warehouses. It’s tightly integratedwith Landis and Gyr and with Logica systems, so thatwhen a utility purchases a metering system fromLogica or from Landis and Gyr we don’t need to start aproject integrating the network into that. That is verybeneficial for utilities.

SMART METERING

Erik Brenneis:Public mobilenetwork takesus closerto M2Mstandardisation


TRANSFORMATION

For an increasingly wide range of industries, M2Mis fast becoming recognised as a potentially vitaltool in helping to achieve that kind oftransformation. Whether it’s in consumerelectronics, energy utilities, manufacturing andindustry, or healthcare sectors, M2M holds thepromise of delivering new ways for companies todifferentiate themselves, improve their businessefficiency and interact with their customers.

Turning that M2M promise into commercial andoperational reality, however, involves more than justthrowing technology at the problem as BaardEilertsen, CEO and president of Maingate – one ofthe pioneers of M2M – explains: “When it comesto M2M implementations, all too often there’s aserious disconnect between decisions abouttechnology strategies and those wider and ‘softer’issues involved in running a business in the realworld. If organisations really want to take fulladvantage of the very real benefits that can comefrom M2M services, then they have to learn tothink in different, more holistic ways about how thetechnology can help them improve relationshipsacross the whole of their value chains.

“At Maingate, we’ve tweaked the acronym slightlyto call it instead ‘M2H’ – where the H stands forHuman – the most important but also the oftenmost overlooked part of the value chain,” he adds.

“There’s no point in adding technology andfunctions, or collecting data, just for the sake of it ifit doesn’t add real value to the end customer at theend of the day. M2M solutions can not only providepowerful insights into how, for example, acustomer is using a product or service, but they canalso be used to provide feedback to that end-userthat enhances the wider commercial relationship,while simultaneously driving further innovation.That’s why we position ourselves as being true,value-added service providers – often inconjunction with specialist vertical market partners– in contrast to many players out there who justprovide the connectivity. Our SLAs and KPIs, forexample, are tuned to focus more on businessfunctions, rather than basic metrics,” says Eilertsen.

Pioneers in M2MMaingate has been around long enough to learnlessons from a wide variety of customers across

Recent history is full of examples of companies applying technologies purely becausethey’re fashionable – rather than because they will bring long-term, strategic benefitsto the businesses concerned. All too often, there’s a yawning chasm between thetechnology visions and the messy, day-to-day realities of running a business inuncertain and complex times. Many organisations desperately need to transformthemselves quickly to cope with new competitors, new business models, globalisedmarkets and eternal pressure to cut costs in their own operations and those of theircustomers – but how to take the first steps and filter the hype from the reality?

Machine-to-humanprinciples will paydividends overconnectivity alone

Baard Eilertsen,Maingate:Creating entirelynew businessmodels


C-LEVEL VIEW:


TRANSFORMATION

multiple industry sectors, and has played apioneering role in areas like smart metering,security and industrial plant. Formed in Sweden in1998 and operating as one of the first MVNOsoffering M2M services, the company has grown tohave over 3,000 customers in 44 countries aroundthe world and uses both GSM and IP technologiesto support its operations.

When it comes to creating a true informationinfrastructure based on M2M that delivers on thehuman end as well, Eilertsen highlights the energyutilities sector as a key example. “There’s a hugeamount of interest around the world right now insmart metering. One of the main drivers for this isan increasing awareness of the importance oftransparency in billing, to help users make the bestchoices for themselves out of the multiple energyproviders out there in the market.

“Complementary to that is the environmental issue– if consumers can get accurate, up-to-dateinformation on how they’re using electricity andhow much it’s actually costing, then they’re farmore likely to conserve increasingly rare andexpensive natural resources,” says Eilertsen. “Thisonce again is where understanding the humanelement – how people discover, process and applyinformation – is essential in designing anappropriate system.”

Smart meters, smarter usageMaingate’s involvement in this sector began aroundthe mid-2000s in both Sweden and Italy as the twocountries introduced pioneering legislation forsmart utility meters to deliver the kinds oftransparency highlighted above. While thecompany now has over 50% of the smart meterbusiness in Sweden, a new joint project with E.ONSweden started early in 2010 is extending thatfunctionality still further to encourage sensibleenergy use by consumers.

Maingate’s Eilertsen takes up the story: “Whilewe’d obviously had a long and successfulrelationship with a number of energy utilities, wewere approached by E.ON Sweden in 2010 whowere keen to try and help their customers make abehavioural change and consume energy moreresponsibly. While with some commodities – suchas petrol in a car – it’s relatively easy to make a

direct link between performance and price. Withintangibles – like electricity – it’s far trickier.

“In a little over three months, we had developed asolution that allowed customers to view theirenergy consumption in real time over in-housedisplays, an iPhone app or their private portal onthe E.ON website. We’ve currently got around13,000 households running this as a trial andfeedback from both end users and E.ON has beenextremely encouraging so far. Once again, ourability to understand the human dimension hasbeen vital in getting this project off the ground soquickly and successfully,” adds Maingate’s CEO.

This holistic M2H strategy is also bringing dividendsto other types of company who find theirtraditional markets under attack and must learn todiversify away from historic product-basedapproaches towards more service-orientedofferings. The levels of intimate insight that can bedelivered in real time by M2M into how a customeris actually using a product turns raw data into apowerful lever, one that enables a shift towards atrue value-added, mutually beneficial relationship.

Eilertsen expands: “We had one major customer afew years ago – a Nordic manufacturer of verylarge cranes – the kinds used in docks and majorplant. They were starting to lose market share tocompetitors from the Far East who were able toundercut them on price – if not performance.Working together, we were able to come up withan M2M solution that captured real-timeinformation on the how the cranes were actuallybeing employed.

New business and lower costs“That could be used as the basis for an entirelynew business model that essentially focused onturning a standard crane manufacturer into acompany that provided a lifting solutions service,complete with price-flexible SLAs that madeexcellent commercial sense for their customers. Theintelligence and insight that our solution was ableto provide also gave direct operational cost benefitsby cutting maintenance overheads by around 70%while simultaneously improving service.”

As far as Eilertsen and Maingate are concerned,there’s no such thing as a ‘one size fits all’

M2M Jargon Buster

GSM = Global Systemfor Mobile

communications

KPI = Key PerformanceIndicator

MVNO = Mobile VirtualNetwork Operator

SLA = Service LevelAgreement

“Our ability to

understand the

human dimension

has been vital in

getting this

(energy

consumption)

project off the

ground so

quickly.”

Baard Eilertsen,

Maingate

C-LEVEL VIEW:


approach in M2M. “I began my working life as anengineer in the oil and gas extraction sector, so Iunderstand what mission-critical really means –human lives can ultimately be at stake. While not allM2M environments are as directly critical in termsof human mortality, they are mission-critical interms of the success of a company and those itserves. The first – and most important – aspectsof any M2M solution must revolve aroundreliability, availability and integrity and this iswhere developing and applying SLAs relevantto the customer’s specific business andapplications have a crucial role to play.

“For that to happen,” he adds, “the M2Msolutions provider must have the rightexperience to be able to apply theappropriate insight into what’s importantand what isn’t for each particular case, andtailor and optimise traffic and SLAs asrequired. Maingate has invested heavily indeveloping the right kinds of tools andtechniques to support different businessscenarios, check that equipment out in thefield is performing properly and deliver theright kinds of information to the client’s ownback and front office systems. It’s that kindof end-to-end insight that allows us toprovide 99.8% availability over a serviceprovider partner’s network – even thoughthey are only able to deliver 97%themselves!”

For the future, Eilertsen sees Maingatecontinuing to grow through a range ofpartnerships in different industry sectors – allcontributing to what he believes will be theevolution of a ‘Smarter Society’. “Increasinginterconnectedness is going to be the definingcharacteristic of the early part of this century,” heobserves.

“Our societies and the systems that support themincrease in vulnerability as they grow in complexity,”he says. “It’s no good just increasing the bandwidth ofnetworks if we don’t also help increase the flow ofintelligible information to the decision makers and usersinvolved in those networks. That’s where we believeour overarching M2H principles will pay dividendsfar beyond those offered by competitors whofocus on connectivity alone.”


According to Moore’s Law, the computing power ofchips will have doubled 12 times in that period.Wafer thin gadgets are now 4,096 times morepowerful than the original computers used whenNASA managed to put a man on the moon.

The combination of processing power and mobilebroadband means all these tiny but powerfulcomputers can be linked together wherever they

are. This created the new digital culture of instantfeedback and immediacy.

Which is why Telefónica (O2 in the UK) hasextended its remit from building the telecomsinfrastructure to creating the applications that willforge our new smart environment. The formationof its new division, Telefonica Digital, was a formalaction to concentrate its efforts in that direction.

When Gilli Coston, Head of M2M for Telefónica UK , started working for the mobilenetwork operator, machine-to-machine projects invariably involved some form oftelemetry at a utility or inventory updates between, say, Pepsi’s distributors and itsvending machines. Most transactions were governed by limited processing power andfixed line bit streams. Now, 18 years later, there’s a very different atmosphere inM2M. Nick Booth reports from Barcelona.

Telefónica Digital

SMART CITIES


Saving the worldAs head of M2M, which falls within TelefonicaDigital, Coston has seen massive advances in theindustry. It’s no longer about telemetry and vendingmachines: the Internet of Things is about Savingthe World.

During the recent Smart Cities Expo and WorldCongress in Barcelona, Telefonica invited M2MNow magazine to witness some of thegroundbreaking developments at its InnovationCentre. A showcase of Telefonica’s developments, itis intended to inspire more companies tocollaborate with the developer. As companies jostlefor position in a market that stands at US$16 billionnow (according to research by IDC) and is projectedto be a trillion dollar opportunity in 10 years,Telefonica is keen to attract and nurture the talentneeded to address this challenge. The scope of inventions showcased ranges from theimmediately practical (smart metering) to theoutlandish (3D printing). The former shows what canbe done now, the latter is intended as inspiration.

Four digital arenasTelefonica’s test stages divide into four categories:the Connected City, eHealth, Corporate Xperienceand the Intelligent Space.

The eHealth platform could speed up collaborationamong doctors and create telemedicineapplications. There are some brilliant innovationsshowcased that help the disabled to work better,including Braille keyboards for the blind, speechinput and a system that can be operated by a user’shead movements.

The results of this work can be seen now in the UK.O2’s new telehealth service ‘Side by Side’ wastested by the state-run National Health ServiceWestern Isles and O2 Health. It reportedlyimproved clinicians’ productivity, cut travels costs by30% and lowered appointment cancellations.

Side by Side software links a clinician’s officecomputers to a remote patient, enabling a longdistance consultation. It uses all the functions of amobile – principally video, audio and chat.Telefonica’s developers have also created anotherclever feature, a digital white board for on-the-spotdiagrams and annotations.

The developers have made it possible for cliniciansat multiple sites to share case notes, X-rays, scans,test results and DICOM images, such as ultrasoundsand ECGs. The fact that this happens in real timemeans that instant decisions are made and patientscan be processed in a fraction of the time. Whichcould slash waiting lists.

In the Connected City initiative Telefonica Digitaland its partners will help homes and businessesevolve into smart habitats. They do this by installing‘smart nodes’ (i.e embedded computers connectedby mobile broadband) that can go across the gridof any metropolitan area. These can make all kindsof automated intelligent decisions.

They can move solar screens to get maximumexposure to the sun as the day passes. They canmonitor the levels of CO2 or pollen or temperatureand, when appropriate, trigger a response. One ofthe greatest advances in tackling carbon emissionswould be a more efficient way of channelling trafficthrough any metropolis.

The onset of 3G and LTE will mean everything in thecity is just one SIM card away from remote control.

Meanwhile, Telefonica in Spain has invented a wayto create a charging infrastructure for electric carbatteries, using devices attached to telephoneboxes. Perhaps that’s a possible use for the UK’sredundant phone boxes. Another logistical optionbeing researched is a system where drivers swaptheir flat battery for a charged one at eachre-fuelling point.

Meanwhile, as homes become greener, monitoringconsumption and creating the infrastructure formore sustainable lifestyles is on the researchagenda. In Spain, Telefonica’s MyEnergy is alreadydelivering smart meters and home automationservices, so that consumption is minimised.

“Smart Cities are already being built,” says Coston.Telefonica is looking for partners to help with thearchitecture and construction. Which is why it has astrategy of keeping the channels of engagementopen, with open architecture, interoperability andstandardisation.

It is looking to create more alliances along the linesof its partnership with Masternaut (which created

SMART CITIES

“Telehealth service ‘Side by Side’ was tested (in the UK).It improved clinicians’ productivity, cut travels costs by30% and lowered appointment cancellations.”

Gilli Coston,Head of M2Mfor TelefónicaUK: Much morethan telemetryand vending


O2’s fleet management product) and Chargemaster(co-developer of its for EV range).

The Corporate Xperience is Telefonica’s attempt tocreate the right setting for staff, companies andgovernment bodies to be at their most productiveand flexible.

The Intelligent Space strand dedicates itself tocustomer service centres at major retailers, bankbranches and government bodies.

The possibilities for devolved machine intelligenceare literally startling. On entering a shopping mall, acamera could convey one’s image to a computer,which then analyses your dimensions and makes a

judgement on the type of person you are and thetype of advert you should be targeted with. Beingtold, by an advertising display, that you look like aman who likes his pies, might not be the mostflattering form of advertising! But the possibilitiesare endless, and the marketing industry adaptsinstantly to any glitches.

The architecture and working environment forTelefonica’s engineers (150 of the staff have PhDs)has obviously been given a lot of thought. Theformation of Telefónica Digital (incorporating O2’sM2M) could accelerate growth in new service areassuch as M2M. On the evening after our visit, wecould see from our hotel that the creatives workedwell into the night. Clearly this is a motivated unit.

Trends driving M2M and Smart Cities

• By 2050 80% of the world’s population will live in cities• By 2020 37% of us will live alone while 36% are married • By 2020 the majority of the population will be over 50 • By 2020, 25% of the UK’s population will work from home more than once a week• 47% of teens who watch TV also like to talk with their friends online via email or IM

M2M Jargon Buster

3G = 3rd Generationmobile communications

DICOM = Digital Imaging& Communications inMedicine

ECG = Electrocardiogram

EV = Electric Vehicle

IM = Instant Message

LTE = Long-TermEvolution (to 4GNetworks)

SIM = Subscriber IdentityModule

In smart cities trafficsignal synchronisationcan be managedautomatically, cuttingcongestion and fuelconsumption, saysTelefónica

“Being told by an ad display that you look like a man who likeshis pies might not be the most flattering form of advertising!”

CONNECTED SOCIET Y

EXPERT OPINION:

But before we can even think about arriving at thatdestination, there is one obstacle that we have yetto widely discuss, let along conquer; that is crossingthe verticals with advanced new intelligent andautomated services and applications. At themoment, the stove pipes of each of the verticalsstand as monuments to the inability of our industryto organise ourselves in a way that takes us out ofour own vertical agendas, and allows us to look atthe wider and sometimes less tangible benefits ofimproving our societies.

New complexity in the value chainPart of the reason for this gap in our thinking is theenormous complexity of the ecosystem and valuechain in M2M services and capabilities. From thecommunication service provider (CSP) perspective,the advent of SmartPhones saw the beginning of afundamental change in the value chain, a changewhich saw them with a diminished share of thetotal revenue due to new application and contentproviders who were originally termed over-the-topplayers.

The concepts of M2M communications and theInternet of Things takes us further along that path,to the extent that it is estimated that for a telcolimiting their offering to pure connectivity, theirshare of the revenue pie will not exceed 15%. So,here we are in a situation where the only memberof the M2M ecosystem that could be argued to be

‘vertically agnostic’ has, in fact, a limited ability topull together the different parts of an advanced,socially-focused ecosystem by virtue of their limitedshare of the spoils.

Table 1 shows a few examples of the type ofsolutions that require co-operation across theverticals, and the benefits they bring. This is byno means exhaustive, but serves to give us aglimpse of the prize, and the type of capabilitieswe aspire to.

Putting the brakes on traffic managementAs we try to understand the solution to thisproblem, it is worth considering an example whereperhaps it is easy to identify the barriers to progress– that is the management of city centre trafficflows. Here we have a scenario where thetechnologies exist today to build an automatedtraffic control system which senses traffic flow andautomatically makes decisions on how to redirectthe traffic to avoid the jams.

This is a classic M2M communication challengewhich we can solve by enabling traffic controltechnologies to communicate, in real-time, withtraffic signals and on-board vehicle systems, usingreal-time prediction algorithms to create intelligencewithin the solution. So, technically the problem hasa reasonable solution which would not be toodifficult to implement, but that which requires

Every day in publications such as M2M Now, we can read of new, exciting and usefulM2M services emerging within the vertical segments. For example, IntelligentTransport Systems which integrate operational systems with enhanced passengerexperience, and advanced Smart Grid and wider energy applications which will help toconserve our precious resources. Beyond this, the concept of the Smart Citypromises to bring all of this together into one coherent organism through which wecan live safer, greener and healthier lives thanks to the Internet of Things.

Realising the potentialof a ConnectedSociety – the newfrontier for M2M

“The evidence

of serious

projects

designed to

develop cross-

vertical M2M

solutions is

scarce.”

The author isRob Parkes,Global MarketingDirector, Internetof Things atAlcatel-Lucent.www.alcatel-lucent.com


intimate collaboration between the municipalgovernment, the transport vertical and automotivemanufacturers and hence, in real life, things are notthat simple.

We must grapple with issues such as theaccessibility and availability of big data, standards,control of data quality for either non-profit publicaccess or licensing for commercial use, plus ofcourse that the investment in such a solution hassome political implications on local, state andcentral government priorities. All of these arecomplex issues, coupled with the fact that we needto integrate solutions like this into other initiativesaimed at reducing the overall number of vehicles onthe roads such as congestion charging and drivereducation programmes designed to changebehaviour. Taking all this into account presents anenormous mountain to climb and it is not hard tounderstand why it is taking time to happen.

Beginning the journeySeveral cities/projects offer partial solutions to thischallenge. In Shanghai there are large electronicsigns over major roads that display real-time trafficinformation and congestion on nearby arterials andfreeways with green, yellow, red colour-codes (redbeing severe traffic) to guide drivers away fromcongested roads. Shanghai’s central business areasalso have real time signage indicating the numberof parking spaces in nearby car parks and garages.

San Francisco is experimenting with a parkingavailability trial that involves real-time charging andspace availability delivered to smartphones and PCsthat enable trip planning in advance. The citydiscovered that people circling business districtslooking for parking contributed to over one third ofall congestion.

Another example is the Highways Agency networkin UK, where more than 10,000 road signs aremanaged along with CCTV cameras to monitor thetraffic, and to use this information to dynamicallyopen the hard shoulders on the road side to easethe flow during peak congestion.

But so far no solution has gone all the way, and sofar there do not seem to be any legal frameworks,regulatory requirements or standards developed tosupport the re-use of government informationresources for city travel and traffic.

Are we building silos?So we have a scenario, which broadly speakingapplies to many of the cross-vertical M2Mchallenges, in which we have the technicalcapabilities to implement a solution but we are held

up but the way we organise our society, our citiesand our institutions. We must also face the fact thatright now, whilst our M2M/Smart City progress isbeing made mainly in vertical stovepipes, we couldbe building up a problem for the future. At somepoint we will be faced with the challenge ofintegrating these massive silos, and at that timetheir compatibility will be key, and it is thiscompatibility that will diminish unless we succeed indeveloping integrated solutions from an early stage.

It is not as simple as laying this at the doorstep ofour government, but it is also interesting to notewhere the progress is actually being made. Smartcities themselves are not being driven and funded asprojects very often by governments, but instead byprivate sector verticals, but where they are, thesekinds of issues are being resolved more quickly. Soperhaps we can conclude that increasing theinvolvement of government in a leadership role inSmart City initiatives involving key M2M applicationswould result in a better outcome, faster.

“San Franciscois experimentingwith … real time(parking)charging andspace availabilitydelivered tosmartphonesand PCs.”


Table 1. Solutions requiring co-operation across the verticals, and their benefits

Benefit to

Energyproviders,utilities

Transportproviders

Government,Public Sector

bodies

Health providersand companies

Domesticconsumers,Smart City

citizens

Energy

Existing solutionswithin the verticals

Reduce electricvehicle “rangeanxiety” with

chargingmanagement

solutions

Smart Gridapplications toreduce outages

and improvedisaster recovery

capabilities

Reduce energycosts in

public/privatehospitals

Reduce utilitiesbills through homeautomation links.

Awareness ofenergy

consumption withSmart Meters

Transport

Load planning forcharging needs ofelectric vehicles


Use traffic controlsystems to clear a

path for emergencyresponse vehicles

Optimalblood/organ

availability usinglinks between

donor databaseand transport

provider

City traffic jamreductions throughintegrated control

systems &enhancedpassenger

experience onpublic transport

Public Sector

Divert traffic fromcongested areas ortraffic black spots

automatically


Improved “time tocare” in emergency

situations

Improved Qualityof Life through

Smart City lifestyleapplications and

E-Gov applications

Solut

ion In Health

Cost optimisationand improved

speed/accuracy of patient andblood/organ

transport

Plan use ofhospital/medicalresources using

remote monitoringdata


Improved healthand health

awareness throughremote monitoring

with automatedoutcomes

ConsumerElectronics

Control domesticpower

consumption withAutomated Home

interace

Increasedpassenger metricsthrough enhanced

passengerexperience and

usability of service

Improved publicservices in areassuch as PublicSafety, CCTV/Smartphone

interface

Optimised healthmanagement

giving improvedoutcomes - forexample Health

Insurancecompanies


Load planning for the powerrequirements of large premises such

as public/private Hospitals andGovernment buildings


M2M ECOSYSTEMS

Machina Research forecasts that global M2Mconnections will increase from one billion at the end of2010 to 12 billion by the end of 2020. In terms oftotal revenues, Machina sees M2M growing from€91 billion in 2010 to €714 billion in 2020.

A crude and simplistic analysis of Machina’s forecaststherefore suggests that average revenue per user(ARPU) will fall from €91 per year to €35.7 over theforecast period.

In a sector which is dependent on combining skills andexpertise from different partners, these revenues willneed to be divided between device manufacturers,application developers, connectivity providers, systemintegrators and service providers. New approaches willclearly be required if the full potential of M2M is to berealised in a way that generates profits.

According to Matt Hatton, a director at MachinaResearch, much of the value of M2M lies in theproducts and services that are wrapped around aconnection and in the value of the connection, ratherthan the traffic flowing across the connection. Thecompany’s own figures highlight this for mobilenetwork operators; Machina reckons that approaching30% of M2M devices – 2.3 billion units – will usemobile connectivity by 2020. On the basis of airtimerevenues of €4 billion, average airtime revenue permobile M2M device will be only €1.74 per year.

Stream Communications, a specialist provider ofGSM, GPRS and 3G network services for M2Mapplications, has experience of working with the APIsof several mobile operators. The company offers itscustomers common interfaces into the networks ofmultiple operators in the UK and a number of othermarkets.

Connection volumes ruleout manual processesNigel Chadwick, a founder and director of StreamCommunications is convinced that open APIs are vital

to the long-term scalability of M2M. “We are heavilyinvolved in sectors where the sheer volume ofconnections makes manual processes impossible.”Open APIs facilitate process automation.

For Machina’s Hatton the issue isn’t so much abouthaving open APIs but about having standardised APIs.“It’s much easier to scale applications if an appdeveloper can build the application once and it willwork across multiple operators.”

The issue has been recognised by various standardsbodies. ETSI (the European TelecommunicationsStandards Institute) is leading a global initiative toprovide an end-to-end view of M2M standardisation.

In September 2010, the Open Mobile Alliance(OMA) released API specifications for more than 40network and device resources. They have beendeveloped to allow operators to create standardisedinterfaces to the service infrastructure within theirexisting networks.

According to Ton Brand, Programme Director,Embedded Mobile, the GSM Association’s oneAPIproject has already defined a set of lightweight, web-friendly APIs which mobile and other networkoperators can use to expose network information andcapabilities such as Short Message Service Centres,Mobile Messaging Service Centres, Location Gatewaysand Billing Gateways.

Standard APIs are key“Any opportunity to bring a level of standardisationand simplicity is critical to the success of an M2Mecosystem,” says Macario Namie, VP Marketing,Jasper Wireless.

Jasper Wireless’ software-as-a-service (SaaS) platformis designed to enable operators to deliver theirpropositions for M2M and embedded devices. LikeStream, the Jasper platform provides APIs that solutionproviders could, theoretically, use to access the

Last September, AT&T joined the growing band of telcos that are opening up networkAPIs (application program interfaces) to application developers. While such movesgenerate great excitement within the smartphone app developer communities, whatare the implications for the wider M2M scene? What else is needed to achieveanalysts’ forecasts for M2M growth? Ian Volans investigates.

Open APIs or standardisation:

Which will benefitM2M more?

The author is IanVolans, anindependentconsultant andwriter with morethan 25 yearsexperience in themobile industry

Axel Hansmann,Cinterion:Welcomesinitiatives toreducefragmentation

Ton Brand,GSMA: oneAPIproject hasalready definedweb-friendlyAPIs

networks of 11operator groups –including AT&T –across 75 countries.

However, Jasper seesitself complementing ETSI’sstandards work. “While ETSIis focusing on applicationlayers and data planes, our focusis on the control plane,” saysNamie.

Axel Hansmann, VP Strategy & MarketingCommunications, at M2M module provider Cinterionagrees that standards are a key issue and welcomesthe initiatives underway to reduce fragmentation.

Cinterion was acquired by Gemalto in 2010. Thecombined group is developing a portfolio of offeringsthat address some of the distinguishing features ofM2M. It’s Machine Identity Module (MIM) has beenspecifically designed as a SIM that is durable enoughto match the lifespans of a decade or more requiredfor many M2M applications. More recently, the grouphas acquired cloud-based M2M service deliveryplatform provider SensorLogic (see News page 5).With these moves, Gemalto is positioning itself as aservice delivery partner to operators.

Developers better supported by sophisticated operatorsAlthough open APIs are important, a recent reportfrom Machina Research benchmarking the M2Mcapabilities of major mobile operators found thatsupport provided to developers and partners variesgreatly. However, the more sophisticated M2M playerswere found to provide a high degree of support.

Gilli Coston, Head of M2M at Telefonica O2 UK

observes that, “The kids developing Android andiPhone apps in their bedrooms will be the M2Mgeneration. We need to have an easy way for

developers to work with us.”

Across the recently-formed Telefonica Digitaldivision (see article, pages 23-25), Telefonica is

supporting around 5 million M2M devicesworldwide. Support needs to extend to

empowering customers to self-serve.Open APIs is one of the options Telefonica has

been studying to see how it can enhance subscribermanagement, serviceability and improve visibility oftheir customers’ estates. “Customers need to be ableto see traffic in real time – they can’t be expected towait 30 days,” says Coston.

Improved self-service tools will also help the manymanufacturers who want to take on the role of aprovider of services to new connected devices. Citingas an example connected sat-navs from Garmin,Namie of Jasper Wireless says manufacturers need alevel of control that has historically been confined tonetwork operators in the past. “The operators whoare giving that empowerment are typically the onesthat are most successful,” says Namie.

At a time when many mobile operators are seekingpermission to ‘re-farm’ GSM spectrum to 3G or evenLTE, Hatton believes that technology certainty isanother important requirement for sustained marketdevelopment. “It’s an old issue, but many clients wanta bit of certainty over how long mobile operators aregoing to keep 2G networks going,” says Hatton.

Patrick Hofkens, Chief Development Officer at modulemanufacturer, Option agrees. “There are markets,such as video surveillance, digital signage and routers,where 3G speed is required but uncertainty aboutthe longevity of 2G networks is an issue for manyother sectors.”

“Machina Research … found thatsupport provided to developersand partners (by mobileoperators) varies greatly.”

Macario Namie,Jasper Wireless:Standardisationand simplicityare critical

Matt Hatton,Machina is inResearch: M2M'svalue is in wrap-around services

Nigel Chadwick:StreamCommunications:Open APIsfacilitate process automation



CUSTOMER SERVICE

EXPERT OPINION:

Having customers that are knowledgeable about acompany’s products and services can be good but italso means that when they contact the customerservices team the answers they will expect will be ofa much higher level. This means having highly trainedcustomer service executives that can go into thesequestions to the depth that the customers expect.

This is a problem that many companies would loveto have and one that M2M managed servicesprovider Wyless was already dealing witheffectively, though it rarely bragged about it. Butwith plans for the next year to improve what isalready a good customer services team, thecompany feels it is time to shout about what it isthat the customer service staff do well.

“We have made some structural changes in thepast year and we decided to have a good look atwhat sets us apart,” said Jenni Weinast, the firm’sglobal customer services manager. “What we sawwas with M2M our customers were coming up withtheir own ways of using it.” This, she said, meantthat they needed more support rather than less.

New M2M applications“They needed to know how to fit M2M into theirown structure,” she said. “As they know more, itbrings up more questions. They are using M2M inways that hadn’t been considered before. There arenew application areas and they are learning newthings.”

But whereas the customer will know more abouttheir side of the business, they might not know theWyless part. “They need to know how our systemswill fit into what they are doing,” she said. “But weare learning from our customers as we go along aswell.”

A good example was during 2011 when Wylessworked with a major security panel manufacturerto help it bring its new business line cellularnetwork services for alarm systems to market.

“We have had challenges with everything fromensuring their depots know what to do with ourSIM cards when they arrive, to how they trackthem, to how their customers know what to dowith them, how to bill their customers, and how tomake it easy for their customers to deal with us,”she said. “We’ve had to look for solutions thatsuited their customers and all the existingprocedures they have, but that also will fit insideour own processes to limit the possibility of errorsand reduce the amount of bespoke training anyteam member requires.”

This meant holding weekly calls to review issues onboth sides and work together to develop ways thatwould help both sides. “When these calls beganthey could be lengthy and the problems requiringsolutions were many. However, with a goodpartnership we quickly solved the problems andthat’s evident in the length of our weekly calls (10minutes) but those calls and the partnershipcontinue and are crucial to success going forward,”she said.

Another example was the operational changesrequired by a major mobile EPoS provider. Therehad been a long partnership in which bothorganisations understood one another, makingthem easy to support and manage.

Multiple requirements“The trust was built and maintained and all washappy,” said Weinast. “Then, as happens, theymerged with a number of other companies. We

Steve Rogerson talks to Jenni Weinast, global customer services manager at Wyless,about the growing importance of customer service in the M2M world.

Customer service:The key to a successfulglobal M2M strategy

“(Our

customers)

are using

M2M in ways

that hadn’t

been

considered

before.”

Jenni Weinast,Wyless:Feedback fromSLAs improvescustomer service

had one large estate that needed to be splitbetween several new companies in severalcountries, all with their own needs and requirementsin terms of contract, costs and supply chain. For ourpartner this was a nightmare. How do they split theestate and help the new entities take over thecontracts and teach them all they knew aboutworking with Wyless within such a limited time?”

Again, partnership was the key here. Regular callswere held between the partner and the newentities and Wyless worked with new proceduresand terms to suit all three parties’ needs.

“It would have been easy as a provider to say ‘wehave a contract with you, it’s got time left to runand we’re guaranteed the revenue so you sort itout yourselves’ but the work we’re doing now tohelp will build the relationships that we need to beable to work together for years to come and bebeneficial to both Wyless and the new organisations.”

Vital feedbackBelieving that the customer service provided is of ahigh level is different from knowing that it is, andfor that reason Wyless is keen to talk to itscustomers and receive feedback from them so thatit can find faults with the service it provides andlook for ways to improve that service.

“There are lots of ways to measure our customerservice,” said Weinast, “but the big one is to talkwith them. We talk with our key customers and lotsof our smaller partners. We find what they needand how we are doing. We also get feedback onthe service level agreement (SLA) and measure thatagainst the targets we set.”

Out of these, she said the feedback from the SLAwas a major way of improving customer service.

“With our strategic partners, though, we haveregular service reviews and find out what they likeand where they would like to see more support,”she said. “We work with them and what we learngoes into our training.”

Another part of this is Wyless’ Porthosmanagement platform for controlling the M2Mservice. “Many more of our customers are usingPorthos to deliver service to their own endcustomers, including using the billing engine andAPI tools and supporting them in these areas willbe become a major part of the day for customerservices,” she said.

“We are listening to our customers’ needs and theirpredictions for the coming years and building ourorganisation with this in mind. In customer servicewithin Wyless this often means working withcustomers to help them develop their own internalprocedures, providing training on the Porthosplatform to entire teams within their business, andmany more service review meetings and sharedlearning.”

Weinast said that at the moment about 10% of thetime for each customer service agent was spent onPorthos but believed this would grow to nearer75% by the end of the year. At present, Wyless hasa team of 15 customer service people providinground-the-clock support from offices in the UK andBoston in the USA. These are backed by a technicalsupport team. There are already plans this year toadd another five people, but that could easily growto 10 if the company continues to expand at itscurrent rate.


“Many moreof ourcustomers areusing Porthosto deliverservice totheir own endcustomers.”


END-TO-END SERVICES

Regardless of how experienced or committed theseindustry customers are, they are all looking tomodule makers and solution providers to showthem, step-by-step, how to best integrate M2Minto their business processes and create a moreefficient, profitable enterprise. However, when itcomes to actually implementing those visions out inthe messy complexities of the real world, the devilreally does reside in the details.

Right across the emerging M2M value chain thereare a host of issues that have to be resolved, bothat each individual functional level and collectively asa holistic whole.

At one end of the connectivity chain there are theindividual devices and sensors – often operating inharsh environmental conditions. At the other, thereare the monitoring and management systems thatturn that connectivity and data into hopefullyvaluable commercial and strategic tools.

Encompassing all of these, stringent disciplines toensure system security, integrity and reliability alsoneed to be in place to guarantee performance.

Faced with this potentially daunting challenge, it isclear that many companies – both end users andnetwork operators – are going to have to seekoutside expertise. This is why Gemalto, recognisedas one of the world’s pioneers in SIMs and,

increasingly, more general digital security issues,has been on the acquisition trail for the last fewyears, putting together just such an end-to-endportfolio of products, systems, services andexpertise.

In the middle of 2010, Gemalto acquiredCinterion, one of the leading M2M wirelessmodules companies. This was followed by thepurchase of M2M service delivery platformSensorLogic at the end of 2011.

Need for end-to-end solutionsFor Benoit Jouffrey, vice president, Value AddedServices at Cinterion, this acquisition strategyclearly reflects the emerging need on the marketfor truly end-to-end solutions. He comments,“Gemalto is obviously a trusted partner for many ofthe world’s leading companies and governmentsthrough our portfolio of smart cards and token,mobile device SIMs and e-passports. When wewere looking at the likely evolutionary path of theM2M space, we naturally saw many synergiesbetween our strengths and expertise and those thatwere going to be needed by both individualcompanies and telecoms service providers, as theylooked to move rapidly into this fast expandingterrain.

“Two high-level aspects were obviously ofparamount importance,” he adds. “One issue

Whatever the business sector, the inclusive benefits of M2M for both sides of thecustomer relationship are clear enough for most to see. Some industries, such assmart metering and fleet management, have witnessed (and in some cases, led) aprocess of revolutionising the way they do business with M2M. Other industries,such as healthcare and mobile payment, can see the potential benefits of M2M buthave only started to scratch the surface of how it can help their bottom lines.

Deploying M2Msimplicity and‘Confidence Connected’

Benoit Jouffrey,Cinterion:Evolutionarypath of M2M

The author, AlunLewis, is afreelancetelecoms writer

EXPERT OPINION:

involved what we term ‘confidence connected’meaning that communications between devices –and indeed the devices themselves – wereappropriately secured against both ‘standard’hacking as well as the kinds of re-engineering thatcan give outsiders access to confidentialinformation and corporate IP.

“Complementary to that also comes a focus onsimplicity in what is potentially a very complexmarketplace. Every industry sector looking to useM2M strategies – and indeed almost everycompany – will have its own aims, objectives,processes, standards and criteria that it needs tosupport. If they’re to deploy M2M solutions quicklyand cost-effectively then the supportingtechnologies and systems need to be asstraightforward to apply as possible. Keeping thingsas simple as possible also helps ensure security andintegrity as there are fewer gaps that can beexploited or where things could go wrong.”

In this context, it’s clear that Cinterion first andthen SensorLogic both have their part to play indelivering on this end-to-end vision. Cinterion –created by Siemens in 1995 and then spun outthrough a venture capital concern – is one of theworld’s leading M2M module manufacturers. Witha proven track record of supplying sectors andapplications as diverse as home utility metering,tracking high value assets and vehicles,environmental conditions such as pollution levelsand personal health, Cinterion has built up a widerange of expertise and trusted relationships acrossdifferent industries.

SensorLogic, the most recent acquisition, wasfounded in 2002 in the US and provides acomplementary set of functionalities to theGemalto portfolio through its cloud-based servicedelivery platform. The SensorLogic Service DeliveryPlatform is a fully hosted, cloud-based managedsolution that utilises the platform-as-a-servicemodel, which provides a number of advantagessuch as faster time to market, high reliability andubiquitous availability in addition to simplifiedadministration and management.

Lasagne-style connectivityCinterion’s Jouffrey explains this approach in moredepth: “It’s important for potential users tounderstand that at the end of the day an M2Msolution is effectively more like lasagne than thespaghetti-like image that people often get in theirminds when they try and envisage the scale andultimate interconnectedness of the operatingenvironment. Essentially you have to have threefunctional layers: one where you provision devicesand manage subscriptions; another able to providethe QoS, security and device managementcapabilities that deliver a trusted solution capableof meeting the typically stringent SLAs you find inthe M2M space; and, finally, the actual applicationand data management layer that handles the dataand delivers the more directly tangible value.


“Keeping things as simple as possible also helps ensure securityand integrity as there are fewer gaps that can be exploited orwhere things could go wrong.”Benoit Jouffrey, Cinterion

An M2M solution is morelike lasagne than thespaghetti image that

people often get in theirminds when they envisage

the scale andinterconnectedness of the

operating environment

“Each of these building blocks is now representedin the overall Gemalto portfolio,” he adds, “and,while there is considerable independence of eachlayer to give freedom to our customers to innovateand add value as they see fit to fulfil their ownstrategies, there’s also obviously a high degree ofintegration between them for companies seeking aone-stop solution.

Open APIs“Take the SensorLogic service delivery platform, forexample. While its cloud-based nature makes itextremely cost-effective for companies looking todip their toes in the M2M water and get up tospeed quickly, its open APIs and flexible rules allowcompanies to develop – and brand – their ownsolutions for their own market niches. In this kindof setting we’re putting the tools for M2M servicedevelopment directly into the hands of third partydevelopers,” says Jouffrey.

This more open type of approach is going to beimportant if M2M is to grow at the scale and speedthat its potential benefits deserve. In many situationswithin the M2M space, it’s going to be a series ofrelationships between trusted parties – enhancedand supported by appropriate technologies – thatare really going to drive innovation.

As Jouffrey sees it, “If you look at mobile banking,for example, then there’s no one entity dominatingthe value and service chain. You have the banks,you have the mobile operator, and you often havea specialist intermediary. To join these up, youusually need multiple skill sets.

“There’s also a project that we’re involved with atpresent involving vehicle monitoring where we’reworking with Deutsche Telekom and BMW.Cinterion was able to provide the specialisedmodules while Gemalto was providing theappropriate connectivity services. In both situationssecurity and privacy are of prime importance and

appropriate disciplines must be imposedthroughout the connectivity chain. It’s especiallyimportant that issues such as these take intoaccount the fact that, over the life of a particularproduct such as a car, it may move between ownersand it may move between regions. If true lifetimesupport is to be given for the M2M services anddevices within that vehicle then those issues mustbe taken into account right at the start of anydevelopment work.”

One implicit part of openness, however, is beingable to support standards as they emerge andGemalto and its subsidiaries have been playing amajor role in this in recent years, working with theGSMA, ETSI and the OMA, to name a few.Another is the on-going work of the eUICC,handled at ETSI level, which aims at increasing theflexibility of UICC provisioning in order to answer tofurther M2M market needs.

In the M2M environment, the use of Java OpenPlatform modules saves development time andmoney and enables an easier integration ofstandard applications with high safety and securitystandards. Cinterion introduced Java-enabledmodules to the M2M market in 2002, making itpossible to include programming, memory andprocessing functions directly on the module itselfwithout the integration of external processors ormemory cards.

Today, Jouffrey says that Cinterion remains theleading provider of Java enabled modulesworldwide. Cinterion Java modules have beensuccessfully implemented in nearly every M2Mvertical market including smart meter reading, fleetmanagement, industrial automation solutions,mHealth and more. Further, these open-platformmodules are empowering new business modelsthrough cross-linking existing applications andproviding a proven platform that helps M2Mcustomers maximise their M2M solution feature sets.


“(SensorLogic’s) open APIs and flexible rules allow companiesto develop – and brand – their own solutions for their ownmarket niches.”Benoit Jouffrey, Cinterion

M2M Jargon Buster

API = ApplicationProgram Interface

IP = Intellectual Property

QoS = Quality of Service

SIM = Subscriber IdentityModule

SLA = Service LevelAgreement

UICC = UniversalIntegrated Circuit Card


EVENT PREVIEW

If the predictions from those planning on attendingMobile World Congress (February 27 - March 1, 2012)are correct, then the impact of the emerging M2Mmarket is set to be reflected around the halls as neverbefore. In fact, Ton Brand, the senior project directorfor the GSMA, believes the magnitude of M2M at theshow will be at least double what it was last year andtwo to three times what it was two years ago.

This, he said, is because the signs are now there thatthe next two to three years will be the ones in whichthis technology really takes off. The decision in Europethat every new car by 2015 will have an embeddedmodem to auto-dial in case of accident will be a majordriver for 2014 and 2015. The smart meter market aswell will drive the roll-out from 2013 to 2015.

Consumers or enterprises?“Thus, a lot of what will be going on in 2012 will betalking about how the market is going to prepare for amuch larger roll-out,” said Brand. “After these,consumer electronics and mobile health will be thenext.”

Nigel Chadwick, vice chair of the Mobile DataAssociation and founding director of StreamCommunications, added: “We see M2M as reallystarting to evolve as a market. In the past 12 to 18months, there has been a significant shift, notably inthe splitting out of verticals such as digital signage,broadcasting, railways and so on.”

Ashish Srivastava, Wipro’s global head of presales andtelecoms advisory practice, described the interest inM2M as “fantastic”, but said that most of it wascoming from large enterprises rather than fromconsumers.

“At the consumer end, we are finding people arefinding it hard to justify a business case,” he said.

“Consumers are not ready to pay for a lot of theseservices, such as in a connected home. The onlyconsumer application that is taking off is surveillanceand security because people can see value, but eventhere it is hard to find a business case.” He said thatcompanies shouldn’t force the issue for consumers butconcentrate on the enterprise side and wait forconsumer interest to grow naturally.

Virtual reality M2M demoThe GSMA will be leading the way at MWC with avirtual reality demonstration showing where the M2Mmarket is now and what it could be like by 2020. Thiswill be backed by its own seminar programme, muchof which will be around the ‘Connected Life’ theme.

“We want to look at what are the long term benefitsof M2M,” said Brand, “not just direct costs, butindirect benefits. We will look at which businessmodels are working and which are not. How will wemake money from this?” There will also be a sessionon how the end users of the future will view mobileand connectivity.

One company that has already had success in theM2M market is ConceptWave, and it is lookingforward to bragging at the show about a recentcontract with an as-yet-unnamed car manufacturer inEurope.

“They are looking at an in-car vehicle trackingsystem,” said Fareed Khan, ConceptWave’s director ofproduct management. “We are managing thecomplete activation of the devices in the vehicles and

The mobile industry will gathering once more in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress(MWC), but this time the growth of M2M providers will be having a significantimpact. Steve Rogerson talks to some of those involved.

Bonanza in Barcelona

Ton Brand,GSMA: By 2015every new car inEurope will havean embeddedmodem

Nigel Chadwick,StreamCommunications:Digital signage,broadcastingand railways

Fareed Khan,ConceptWave:In-car vehicletracking system

“Consumers are

not ready to pay

for a lot of these

services, such as

in a connected

home. The only

consumer

application that is

taking off is

surveillance and

security.”

-- Ashish

Srivastava, Wipro


once the devices are activated we will be managingthe service.”

M2M in the cloudHe said the service would use M2M as a base onwhich additional products and services could beadded. “We can provide models for service providersthat will let them offer M2M to their customers as acloud offering,” he said.

Stream Communications will be using the show tolaunch its laboratory for testing M2M devices on amobile infrastructure. This will open officially in Marchand will be based at the company’s offices in Glasgow.“We will be able to test any application or device,”said Chadwick, “ranging from mobile handsets torouters and modems with 3G or GPRS capability. Weare the only UK company with a mobile networkagreement with all the mobile carriers, so we can testacross all the mobile networks.”

At the show, Stream will also launch a set of 3G andGPRS routers for the M2M market. One will be a lowcost model suitable for digital signage, and the otherwill be a high specification unit.

For over-the-air testing, Comprion offers an end-to-end service that will suit M2M applications wherethere is limited or no access. “In the past, the UICCwas accessible by removing it from a terminal andputting it into a card tester,” said Henning Moeller,Comprion’s project manager.

“This is not possible with M2M because the card issoldered into the device and there is no access. So theonly way to test it is over the air.” And he said therewas a trend now for the UICC to be software ratherthan hardware, which again meant over-the-air testingwas the only option.

Poor signal strengthStella Doradus will be offering a solution to theproblem of poor signal strength on mobile networksfor M2M radios, which can happen in vehicles andeven fixed installations such as vending machines. Thecompany has a range of amplifiers that can be used toboost the signal.

“We have sold several of these already for testing butwe will be officially launching them at the show,” saidthe company’s James Browne. “The reaction in thefield has been very positive. M2M is just starting, but itis going to be an enormous market. It is another wavefor humanity.”

Celebrating its first birthday at the show will beBoxpay, which grew out of a company sellingringtones into one that provides a mobile paymentsplatform.

“We can help any kind of digital content provider whowants to charge through a mobile phone,” saidBoxpay’s marketing manager, Amanda Keating. “Theyenter a mobile phone number and get a text messagewith a PIN code to confirm the transaction.”

The company will be adding a one-touch billing optionat the show for in-app Android billing. “Our goal atMWC is to talk with network carriers and digitalcontent providers,” she said. “M2M is now coveringalmost all industries through fixed line and wireless.”

A platform comprising a bundle of tools for launchingand managing M2M apps will be the highlight ofWipro Technologies’ stand. “We will be showing someof the vertical applications that we already have, suchas in fleet management and healthcare,” saidSrivastava. “We will also be showing our abilitythrough the platform to construct new entrance appsquickly.”

The final major area mentioned for M2M in thecoming years is the smart meter roll-out, andConvergys will be explaining at MWC how it can helpin the billing and controlling of events over smartmeter networks.

“Over the next 18 months to five years, the utilitieswill become a major user of M2M and a provider ofM2M services,” said Andy Corkhill, Convergys’ headof utilities and logistics. “We can be at the heart ofthat. And we can even help consumers use theirsmartphones to monitor and controltheir usage and manage their bill.”

Henning Moeller,Comprion: OTAtesting is theonly way

James Browne,Stella Doradus:Solution to poorsignal strengthfor M2M radios

Amanda Keating,Boxpay: Newone-touch billingoption

Andy Corkhill,Convergys: Usesmartphones tomanage utilitybills

M2M Jargon Buster

UICC = UniversalIntegrated Circuit Card

(smart card used inmobile terminals in GSM

and UMTS networks)

EVENT PREVIEW

Podsystem Ltd, a mobile virtual network operator(MVNO) specialising in data SIM cards for M2M, haslaunched a gigabyte SIM card that connects to anynetwork in any EU country at a fixed low cost. TheseSIMs can roam on every network available in each ofthe 35 European countries covered. If a network goesdown or there is limited coverage in the area, it willautomatically connect to the next available network.

The new MultiNet Gigabyte SIM cards have beendesigned for ‘gigabyte hungry’ M2M applications suchas security and video. These applications normally facehuge roaming costs when they connect to other networks,both within individual EU countries and abroad.

For the growing market in high usage M2Mapplications – including video, security, CCTV andsurveillance cameras – roaming costs have alwaysrepresented a barrier to widespread rollout, due to thehigh levels of data these applications require.Traditional multi-network SIMs do not enable gigabyteusage since the cost at these levels of data would betoo high. Podsystem’s MultiNet Gigabyte SIMs scalefrom 100Mb up to 5Gb of data and cost around€50.00 for 1GB, a price which, until now, has beenimpossible to achieve with multi-network SIMs.

For M2M companies, cost control is not the onlyadvantage of Podsystem’s MultiNet SIMs. The ability of

the SIM to automatically connect to the next availablenetwork if coverage is lost is a vital feature for devicesthat have sealed units or are located out in the field orin rural areas. Often M2M companies spend time andmoney contracting engineers to solve problems thatcould be resolved automatically in seconds by aMultiNet SIM. Although many operators have recentlyintroduced roaming M2M SIM cards, these arerestricted to one network, meaning that if the networkgoes down or loses coverage in a particular area,service to the M2M device will be interrupted.

“From our experience working with M2M companiesover the last 11 years, we identified the need for atrue multi-network solution for the video and securitysectors, one that would allow the market to expandboth nationally and internationally without the barrierscaused by high prices for data at these usage levels,”commented Charles Towers-Clark, CEO of Podsystem.“Our MultiNet SIMs enable such companies to ensurea cost effective, seamless service whether they areroaming within the UK or across Europe.”

In addition to the new range of MultiNet SIMs,Podsystem offers an online administration platformand billing system, enabling them to control all aspectsof their SIMs at any time, from activations to real-timedata monitoring and billing at prices determined bythe reseller.

Podsystem claims ‘first affordable,multi-network SIM’ for applicationsneeding gigabyte usage

Charles Towers-Clark, CEO ofPodsystem:Cost-effective,seamless service

According to a new report by independent marketresearch and consultancy firm, IMS Research, thenumber of near field communications (NFC)-enabledphones shipped in 2011 totalled 35 million globally.IMS Research forecasts that significant market eventsand the enablement of other cellular handsets willdrive that number to nearly 80 million by the endof 2012.

“After seven or so years of false dawns and frequentdisappointment, 2011 has proved to be something ofa breakthrough year,” says Don Tait, senior analyst atIMS Research. Most of the leading cellular handsetmanufacturers have launched NFC-enabled handsetsover the last 12 months. They include Samsung, RIM,Nokia and HTC. Apple is the main player yet to releasean NFC-enabled handset.”

There have also been an increasing number of joint

ventures and collaborations between different playersin the NFC ecosystem. Significant examples include:

• The launch of Google Wallet in the US

• The French Government funding NFC in Paris, Bordeaux, Caen, Lille, Marseille, Rennes, Strasbourg, Toulouse and Nice.

• Orange’s plan to have sold 500,000 NFC-enabled cellular handsets in France by the end of 2011

• Orange UK and Barclaycard’s ‘Quick Tap’ contactlesspayment solution, launched in May 2011 in the UK. Retailers that have signed up to this service include McDonald’s, EAT, Pret-a-Manger and Boots.

In 2012, the market for NFC looks even morepromising. Sales of NFC-enabled cellular handsets areprojected to accelerate during the next 12 months toreach 80 million handsets.

Mobile NFC achieves breakthrough with 35m handsets shipped in 2011

Sales of NFC-enabledcellular handsets areexpected to grow this year

MultiNet Gigabyte SIMcards connect to anynetwork in 35 Europeancountries

WIRELESS NEWS


James Brehm, senior strategistand consultant, CompassIntelligenceCompass Intelligence is anArizona-based decision analyticsresearch and consulting firm.

Compass Intelligence predictsthat the next generation M2Mand connected device market willreach 87 million endpoints by2015, with a compound annualgrowth rate (CAGR) of more than25%.

“We are on the cusp of an era where every device thatcan benefit from being connected via a cellularconnection to the internet will be connected to theinternet and other devices,” said James Brehm ofCompass Intelligence. “These devices already includecars, electricity meters, health and wellness devices,surveillance systems and many other complex systems;and the process isn’t always a simple one.

“To meet the promise that M2M holds, the industryrequires an ecosystem that enables non-traditionalcompanies to look for new business models, simplifyand accelerate the ‘onboarding’ process, hide thecomplexity from the end user, and thus provide a simpleand seamless customer experience,” said Brehm.

Andy Silberstein, vice president & generalmanager, Globecomm Network ServicesGlobecomm Network Services is a global provider ofsatellite-based managed network solutions, offeringcomprehensive system integration, system products,and network services.

Globecomm predicts that ruraloperators will leverage M2Mwireless in 2012. As the numberof mobile devices continues tomultiply, there is no doubt, saysthe company that the wirelessM2M market will continue togrow. But, what role will therural operator play?

2012 will be the year that ruralcarriers begin to benefit fromand leverage growth across thewireless M2M market, saysGlobecomm. The wireless M2Mmarket itself is ripe for verticalapplications including those in

the energy, healthcare, telemedicine, automotive,agriculture, maritime and shipping industries. “In theenergy and mining industries specifically, companieswith locations across the US have the opportunity tointegrate significant OpEx efficiencies into theiroperational information flow with the use of M2Mcommunications,” says Andy Silberstein.

“Rural operators are also well positioned to benefitfrom these services. Although it will take time for ruraloperators to fully establish their own M2M valueproposition, they are realising that they can getinvolved now. For example, as M2M rolls out in theautomotive and health industries, rural operators willbenefit from an increase in roaming revenueassociated with roaming M2M devices. There will alsobe new M2M service providers that bundle serviceofferings to address specialised markets such as theenergy sector in more rural areas,” he adds.

We have asked a few of the braver souls in machine-to-machine communications toput their reputations on the line and hazard a guess at what 2012 has in store for usin the business of M2M, connected devices, near-field communications, mobileenterprises and smart services.

What’s ahead in

“2012 will be the

year rural carriers

begin to benefit

from the wireless

M2M market.”

- Globecomm

Network Services

PREDICTIONS FOR M2M

James Brehm,CompassIntelligence:Industry requiresan ecosystem

Andy Silberstein,GlobecommNetworkServices: Ruraloperators willleverage M2Mwireless


John Horn, CEO, RACOWirelessRACO Wireless provides wirelessconnectivity for M2Mapplications via T-Mobile USA’snetwork.

In 2012 John Horn expects,“more M2M player consolidationand increasing M2M expansioninto very specific market niches,like asset management. We areworking with more than 100companies developing M2Mproducts that have the potential

to revolutionise the way entire industries manage theirinfrastructure. It’s an exciting time to be in M2M.”

Pat Carroll, CEO of ValidSoftValidSoft provides multi-layer, outof band, mobile-based identityverification solutions to secure arange of online and mobiletransaction methods.

“Following a flurry ofdevelopments in mobile payments,NFC and mobile banking in 2011,already 2012 is heading to be theyear of the mobile attack. Trojanssuch as Zitmo and Spitmo –

versions of Zeus and SpyEye which attack mobiledevices – are already well known, and other termssuch as ‘Pseudo Device Theft’, ‘SIM swapping’, ‘mobilemalware’ and ‘AppPhishing’ are all starting to maketheir way into the tech dictionary,” says Pat Carroll.

“Consumer awareness of threats is increasing, sosecurity is going to be key to the success of any majorproject in this area. But to get it right, security needsto be considered from the outset (by design) so that itdoesn’t affect usability. There is no silver bullet solutionhere – what’s needed is a layered approach, combiningvisible and invisible security checks, and using out-of-band, real-time, voice-based authentication andtransaction verification processes to combat all typesof Pseudo Device Theft, such as SIM Swap and CallForward Unconditional,” Carroll adds.

Kevin Mahaffey, co-founderand chief technology officer,Lookout Mobile Lookout is a mobile securitycompany offering protection fromthe growing threats facing mobileusers today, including malware,phishing, privacy violations, anddata loss.

“Like any business, malwarewriters are continually inventingnew ways to expand their reach

and profit. The potential ‘addressable market’ isenormous: while the (electricity) grid serves 80% ofthe global population, the wireless grid alreadyreaches 85% of individuals worldwide. In addition tosize and growth, the market also has an attractive

attribute that can make fraud simpler to conduct: abuilt-in payment mechanism.”

Kevin Mahaffey continues, “2011 has seen theemergence of a credible field of Android malware,with a 4% yearly likelihood of an Android userencountering malware, which was a significantincrease compared to the beginning of the year. In thebeginning of 2011 we measured a 1% yearlylikelihood. In total, we have identified more than1,000 instances of infected applications, which is adoubling since the beginning of July 2011.”

“Because web-based threats, such as phishing, cancarry over from the PC, the likelihood is higher thanthat of malware, which needs to be redeveloped formobile devices. The global yearly likelihood of anAndroid user clicking on an unsafe link is 36% (6%higher than July 2011). In the US, the likelihood ishigher than the global average at 40%.”

Bo Zhang, Senior Analyst andJon Cropley, Principal Analyst,IMS Research IMS Research is an independentsupplier of market research andconsultancy to the globalelectronics industry.

“One trend which is unlikely tohave a big impact on the videosurveillance market in 2012, butwill receive more publicity andhave a longer term impact is theInternet of Things (IOT).Individual objects areelectronically identified andcategorised virtually, in aninternet-like structure. For thisthey need to contain a tag, suchas an RFID tag. Once categorised,supply can more easily meetdemand, waste can be reducedand it is possible to find objectswhen they become lost.

“IOT is receiving a lot ofattention in China,” says IMSResearch. “The Chinesegovernment is strategically

focusing on the development of seven emergingindustries. These industries are expected to enjoypreferential policy treatment in a number of respects.The New Generation of Information Technology (NGIT)is one of these industries. And IOT is one of the mostimportant parts of NGIT.”

“China has installed millions of video surveillancecameras over the past 10 years and these camerascould provide a source of information to verify thecategorisation of objects for IOT. IOT includes threelayers: the perception layer, the network layer, and theapplication layer. Video surveillance cameras wouldprovide a source of information for the perceptionlayer. The expected benefits of IOT will help justifypublic expenditure on video surveillance equipment,”IMS concludes.


M2M Jargon Buster

NFC = Near-FieldCommunications

OpEx = OperationalExpenditure

RFID = Radio FrequencyIdentification

Pat Carroll,ValidSoft: Theyear of themobile attack

Kevin Mahaffey,Lookout Mobile:Credible field ofAndroid malware

Bo Zhang,Senior Analyst,IMS Research

Jon Cropley,PrincipalAnalyst, IMSResearch

John Horn,RACO Wireless:More M2Mplayerconsolidation

PREDICTIONS FOR M2M

M2M Now Magazine Feb-March 2012 Edition

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Transcript of M2M Now Magazine Feb-March 2012 Edition