With machine-to-machine (M2M) services, aka the Internet of Things, “now scaling to be a significant business” for a growing number of telecom and Internet service providers, Infonetics on May 14 released the results of a global survey of M2M service providers’ market expectations and strategies.
With each providing at least 1 million M2M connections to customers, M2M is a “sizable” business for over half the 20 service providers Infonetics surveyed for its “M2M Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey.” Collectively, businesses in the automotive/transport/logistics and utility sectors account for nearly half, Infonetics states in a news release.
“Service provider focus and prioritization of the M2M segment has been a relatively recent phenomenon, but as our latest M2M service provider survey shows, M2M is now scaling to be a significant business for a good number of providers around the world,” Infonetics’ Godfrey Chua, directing analyst for M2M and The Internet of Things, was quoted as saying.
“The leading tier of M2M players have committed meaningful resources to developing their M2M businesses and now have significant scale to show for it — between 2 million to just under 10 million M2M connections. They have strategies in place and have created standalone M2M business units comprised of overlay go-to-market and technical organizations. M2M is no longer just an extension of the enterprise business unit for these service providers.”
Internet of Things Communication
Other highlights of Infonetics’ global M2M market strategies report include:
- M2M is still predominately 2G: LTE remains nascent, making up only 1% of total devices; however, both 2G and LTE are expected to be the fastest-growing M2M access technologies in the near term
- National coverage tops the list of M2M solution features rated very important by respondents, followed by web-based management tools and service-level agreements (SLAs)
- For many service providers entering the M2M space, a service platform is key to jump-starting an M2M business: Those surveyed most often named Jasper Wireless and Ericsson as the top M2M platform providers
- Meanwhile, 55% of respondents are using internally-developed M2M service platforms.
