Machina Research, UK-based telecoms research and consulting firm, revealed Vodafone as the best positioned communications service provider (CSP (News - Alert)) between now and 2020 in its 2012 M2M Benchmarking Study.

“Machina Research rates Vodafone as the CSP with the bets potential to exploit the massive opportunities presented by machine-to-machine,” said Matt Hatton, author of the study. “In particular, its global scale gives it a substantial competitive differentiator.”

According to Machina Research, the aim of the study is to identify which CSPs are set to prosper in the future, rather than identifying those which are succeeding today. Seven of the most notable CSPs that were evaluated are: AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, Telenor, Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless and Vodafone.

In order to rate each CSP, Machina used six key areas which would determine the company’s success:

• Pedigree – The experience that the CSP has in addressing the M2M market.
• Platforms – The software platform(s) that the CSP uses for supporting its M2M connections.
• Place – Where the CSP is well placed, geographically, to provide service.
• Partnerships – A critical component in the success on M2M.
• Process – Examining a variety of processes involved in the supply of M2M services (application development, device certification, troubleshooting, SLAs, project management integration and client support).
• People – Success for the future of a M2M depends heavily on the people hired and where they’re placed within the company.

Most of Vodafone’s (News - Alert) success in these six areas relies on the “Place” category. In the survey Machina reveals their belief that by 2020 Vodafone will cover 600 million addressable cellular M2M connections due to its continued presence in the United States.

“While I wouldn’t say that they are streets ahead of the competition, Vodafone was our clear winner,” said Hatton, adding, “However, the race for second spot was very hotly contested between AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange (News - Alert), Telenor and Verizon, with little to choose between them. Each has strengths and weaknesses.”

Although it was a harder call, by the end Deutsche Telekom (News - Alert) was confirmed as the second best CSP. Hatton told Total Telecom he believes Deutsche Telekom’s position may shock some people because they haven’t been considered one of the “big guns” of M2M until now.

Deutsche was commended by Machina Research for its “Process,” “Partnership,” and “Place.”

“None of the CSPs has a monopoly on best practice in all of the categories,” said Hatton when summarizing the results. “Each has room for improvement. Each also has particular advantages due to their company structure or approach that can give them a lead or allow them to differentiate. Above all, however, each of them can learn from the others.”

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