Home EuropeEurope II 2013 M2M – towards a mature technology

M2M – towards a mature technology

by david.nunes
Jürgen Hase Issue:Europe II 2013
Article no.:1
Topic:M2M – towards a mature technology
Author:Jürgen Hase
Title:Vice President of M2M Competence Center
Organisation:Deutsche Telekom AG
PDF size:190KB

About author

Jürgen Hase is the Vice President of the M2M Competence Center at Deutsche Telekom AG; he is responsible for the Deutsche Telekom‘s international M2M business. Mr Hase has worked more than 20 years in the telecommunications industry and in the M2M sector. Mr Hase previously sat on the management board of MC Technologies GmbH, was a Sales Director Western Europe at Keymile GmbH and Head of Product Management at Alcatel. He is also Chairman of the M2M Alliance.

Jürgen Hase is a graduate in communications engineering.

Article abstract

In more and more areas of business and life, M2M is making workflows simpler, processes leaner, and entirely new business models possible. Its true benefit, though, have yet to come. Where today we collect data, tomorrow we will analyze it and gain deeper insights into production and processes than ever before. M2M solutions are already in use in all industries and, if you want to make your home secure or have your physician monitor your blood pressure automatically, you can rely on M2M.

Full Article

After the initial M2M hype in the late 1990s, for that was all it was, little was heard of the technology for a long time. In 2013, however, we have made progress and innovation has made M2M a reality. M2M solutions are already in use in all industries and, if you want to make your home secure or have your physician monitor your blood pressure automatically, you can rely on M2M.

M2M business is bound for further growth in the years ahead. Market analysts like the experts at Machina Research expect total sales of M2M solutions, including equipment, models, services and data tariffs, to increase from US$ 200 billion today to US$ 1.2 trillion by 2022.

Customer demand – the driver

Today’s M2M market is no longer technology-driven; it is driven by customer demand and customer benefit. New developments no longer come onto the market as products – designed by engineers and computer scientists – that need to be explained. Industry understands the opportunities that M2M opens up and takes part in the debate. So further growth is clearly aligned to its requirements, and requirements differ in different parts of the world.

In Europe, the automotive industry will be the main market driver in 2013. New regulations, such as the EU directive that all new cars must be equipped with an automatic emergency calling system from 2015, are one reason why. A so-called eCall alerts the emergency services automatically if the car is involved in an accident. To enable it to do so, automobile manufacturers are incorporating embedded SIM chips in series production vehicles. Automakers must also fulfil their customers’ requirements and provide more and more in-car telematics and entertainment offerings. That will give the connected automobile a further boost.

M2M growth is also anticipated in the energy sector. The energy turnaround, with the increased use of renewable energy, necessitates smart networking of consumers and providers. That is the only way in which automatic load management can ensure that there will be no power cuts in the future whenever the wind is still. An EU directive for the internal market in electricity requires member-states to launch smart metering systems so that by 2020 around 80 percent of households have smart meters. Providers are adopting new approaches to ensure they can meet this target. One partnership consisting of a smart metering solution provider and an operator, for example, is assisting power utilities to extend their smart grids. For each newly registered, the partnership is financing four more.

In the United States, healthcare is likely to be a powerful M2M business driver. US health insurers have realized that remote patient diagnosis by means of telemedicine and M2M-assisted prevention programs will reduce costs in the long term. M2M applications are already monitoring cardiac pacemakers and implantable defibrillators. ECG equipment in ambulances relays readings automatically to doctors at the nearest hospital who can then start the right treatment faster.

SMEs are also increasingly realizing the benefits of M2M communication and demanding end-to-end solutions for all manner of purposes. This demand is fostered by cloud-based offerings and the attendant changeover from capital expense to operational expense investment models. Rather than investing upfront, SMEs can gear the use of M2M applications directly to their demand and pay monthly only for the services that they have actually used.

Low cost modules and new middleware

Demand will determine which M2M solutions take shape, but it will take technological development to enable these solutions to be used in increasingly large numbers. In 2013, we will see a number of innovations in M2M. On the module side, we can look forward to low-cost solutions from primary or input product providers. They will be specialized in simple tasks such as tracking and tracing or status reports and will fire up the mass market even further with low prices and low energy consumption.

On the software side, new middleware platforms are taking shape that will constitute the horizontal application layer. Over and above existing levels such as connectivity and device management, they will support cross-industry tasks such as setting up heterogeneous sensor networks for industrial monitoring. They will also map other aspects such as security and over-the-air updates. These horizontal middleware solutions are the software consequence of M2M reaching maturity. The aim is to map as much as possible via uniform standards so that the vertical, industry-specific aspect of a solution only comes into its own right at the end of the development process. In other words, if the wheel does not need re-invention for each industry solution and every single task, it will be possible in the future to provide M2M solutions much faster and at significantly lower prices.

Mobile network operators (MNOs)

One point is clear. In the future, different customer requirements will call for a wide range of M2M solutions. Just as we now have an app for nearly everything, in the future M2M applications will be available for the most varied tasks. That will increasingly make mobile network operators take on the role of enablers. They are the link between many small software and hardware providers and customers who would like end-to-end applications from a single source. The first steps have already been taken to fulfil this role. MNOs have initiated international partner programs to collaborate with a rapidly growing number of hardware and software providers. In 2012, example, a global, manufacturer-independent e-commerce platform was launched, the M2M Marketplace. Now companies have an opportunity to market their products around the world. MNOs, are also simplifying cooperation for developers with initiatives such as the M2M Developer Community.

MNOs also play a major role in security and data protection – other aspects that are vital for the acceptance of M2M. MNOs have long had these issues on their agenda and offer a large number of certified encryption processes. Still, users must take a close look at where all of this data is stored. Operators in Europe, where statutory data protection requirements are especially high, use high-security data centres.

Cooperation please

M2M is not a local business, quite the opposite. Customers want to make cross-border use of solutions. To ensure international availability and common communication standards, cooperation between MNOs is necessary. Several European operators set up the Global M2M Association (GMA). Its aim is to improve the quality of service and strengthen M2M communication standards for network interoperability and harmonization of software interfaces (APIs). Another example is the M2M Alliance, which includes nearly all of the major European providers and integrators. It too aims to develop more uniform standards and platforms. That, however, will be nowhere near enough. In 2013 and beyond, there will be other strategic alliances that will help determine the future of the market.
M2M meets ‘big data’

Today the main focus of M2M applications is on collecting data. In the future we will be dealing with enormous quantities of data from all areas of industry and life. M2M is one of the developments that drive exponential data growth around the world – the big data trend. But new benefits only arise when big data can be analyzed in real time.
Until now, data requests have been largely limited to individual values. Doctors, for example, keep an eye on patients’ blood sugar counts that are read, relayed via mobile networks and archived. More extensive conclusions can be derived from analyzing many different, inter-related parameters. Approaches to analyzing data retroactively may exist, but relevant patterns, then, might be too late to use. Methods of analysis that examine incoming data flows in real time and look for patterns in them are much more promising. Procedures of this kind are already in use. Self-learning systems are able, for instance, to identify wear and tear of wind turbine generators or pumping system motors. They observe processes over a long period of time and thereby detect creeping changes.

Connecting previously isolated, standalone data silos is also highly promising. As yet, we can barely foresee what possibilities may result for, say, epidemiology or climate research from analyzing these merged data records. What we do know for sure is that a new survey of the world awaits us, driven by connected machines automatically sharing information. M2M is already a reality, and specific solutions for the widest range of tasks are in the works in all industries. At the same time ample space remains for our creativity because we are only just catching sight of the next evolutionary steps.

Related Articles

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More