According to Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) the next layer of M2M revenue opportunities for the ICT sector will come from M2M in government and the Smart Cities concept. Their analysis finds that in 2010 the market registered another year of high growth, increasing almost 60 percent year-on-year to reach approximately 20 million SIMs.

Frost & Sullivan defines the Smart Cities concept as an interconnected urban environment with citizens leading a fully digitalized lifestyle, which can be further developed with a committed government hand in employing M2M technology. By setting up a framework for leveraging different types of urban stakeholders, the government can also benefit from improved delivery of local government services and a positive environment to attract investments.

Yiru Zhong, Industry Analyst for the ICT group said, “The government must play a critical role in overcoming any coordination issues by managing interests of various urban stakeholders such as energy service providers, environment services providers, transportation, tourism, and most importantly digital citizens. The degree of smartness may currently be limited to the well defined M2M functions of track and trace, remote monitoring, status updates and security access. However, the future of Smart Cities depends on the rate at which new and smarter M2M applications can be developed for business critical processes in the above sectors.”

Telecom service providers are also seeking partnerships to roll out the Smart Cities concept. There are a few prominent examples of telecom service providers working with local city councils on electric vehicle charging or environmental service providers on smart energy services. The expectations are for telecom service providers to find a new and sustainable revenue stream in facilitating this beyond a pure connectivity perspective.  

Want to learn more about M2M technologies? Then be sure to check out the M2M Evolution conference, collocated with TMC’s (News - Alert) ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. The M2M Evolution Conference is for those industry professionals interested in capitalizing on a rapidly growing segment of the telecom industry. The M2M Evolution Conference embraces the any-to-any strategy of the Internet today. Co-sponsored by TMC Partner Crossfire Media, it showcases the solutions, and examines the data strategies and technological requirements that enterprises and carriers need to capitalize on a market segment that is estimated to grow to $300 Billion in the year ahead. To register, click here.

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