While not on the scale of Cairo and the people’s revolt and the call for democracy, M2M Evolution at ITEXPO East in Miami Beach had a lot of happy people approaching me with positive feedback regarding our conversations.

In the mix of our event we started off with a video conference call from Jeff Smith (News - Alert) the CTO of Numerex and the chair of TIA (News - Alert) 50. We had the discussions about agriculture, Asset management, mHealth, and telematics. We had cases studies with the FBI involved in protecting assets, HiTechnic’s Steve Barker demoed and explained Lego Mindstorm Robots which we gave away a set to one of delegates.

Unfortunately, we also had some first day no shows due to the weather which was the big news in the U.S.; crowds forming in Egypt and clouds storming in the U.S.- fortunately in that order.

During these recent events in the Middle East I kept hearing about the impact of the Internet on these changes in Tunisia and Egypt and the use of an Internet Kill Switch. What does that really mean and will it impact M2M?

The answer is yes, no and maybe.

First of all, let’s address the yes part. When they talk about the Internet kill switch what it really means is it impacts the web. The DNS no longer resolves and the BGP routing tables are no longer published so packets have to travel blind. For the sensors associated with the M2M this is not really an issue. However, if you are providing a business process that uses the web to distribute the intelligence, you may want to think about how to support a more direct connection. Perhaps this means a rebirth for peer to peer solutions.

Now here comes the maybe that should cause alarms to go off. While we were talking about the future of the wireless mobility and machines. A few miles away NANOG (News - Alert) and ARIN were ceremonially handing out the last IPV4 address.

Is your M2M solution IPv6 enabled? Do you know what happens if its not? You could be your own Internet kill switch! When I was younger I read a very strange book by Stanislaw Lem in which the government tried to end a revolution by tainting the drinking water with a chemical that would act the opposite of your intentions. Unfortunately not everyone drank the water, (there was a cheap booze that competed with the water). The result was complete chaos. The army was half turning into peaceniks, the revolutionaries were putting on suits, etc. More and more fragmentation happened within the society.

You could be guilty of tainting your own water if you have not figured out your migration plan because what will happen is that you will not realize that all your network elements are no longer reporting. Like the people in Tunisia and Egypt you may find yourself missing information. Alternatives can be found, but the more you add on fixes the less likely you are to fix the problem.

Please don’t be your own Internet kill switch. Go to ARIN and stay connected.