It isn't the first alliance built around the machine-to-machine communications market, but today's committment by KPN, NTT, Docomo, Rogers, SingTel, Telefonica, Telstra and Vimpelcom to cooperate on developing and enabling a global solution for the provision of M2M communications to multinational customers could help drive the scale necessary for enterprises to get on board.
The companies have committed to further the development of the M2M market and the improvement of customer convenience by cooperatively addressing the complex and fragmented nature of the M2M market.
They expect that by doing so, participating companies will increase their capability to offer better value propositions to their respective customers in different markets and geographies. The global alliance in providing a global product featuring a unique SIM, and a united Web interface and centralized management of status and usage of M2M devices globally, via the Jasper Wireless Control Center, is expected to result in cost reduction and enhancement of user experience and convenience.
The goal is to stimulate the sale of M2M communications across a number of distinct high-potential industries such as consumer electronics, automotive, energy efficiency and more and to enable the development of new business models, the creation of new products and services and a reduction in operational costs for these target industries.
Analysys Mason, which forecasts 124.4 million M2M device connections by the end of this year and 2.1 billion by 2021, said multinational corporations need simple access to M2M solutions including connectivity – and global partnerships facilitate these solutions.
"We expect these seven carriers to provide connectivity solutions and a variety of M2M managed and value-added services including SLAs, systems integration and managed security services, said Steve Hilton, principal analyst at Analysys Mason.
Jamie Moss, senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, said the M2M market is gaining momentum and industry participants are eagerly waiting for the moment when growth stops being slow and steady and becomes exponential. He added that operators are looking to drive scale of M2M for all participants and that the common use of Jasper Wireless will speed deployment for multinational enterprises.
"One of the drivers for this anticipated scale is the M2M service providers’ ability to address the needs of the market as widely as possible, something that is achieved through ubiquity of coverage and seamless continuity of service availability," Moss said. "This dovetails with the need of enterprises wishing to augment their operations using M2M connectivity to do so as simply as possible."
