Happy New Year and welcome to this week’s edition of the M2M Week in Review, a round-up of the past week’s news published on TMCnet’s
M2M Evolution Web site. As you will see from this past week’s news, 2010 is already shaping up to be an exciting year in the blossoming M2M technology market:
On Tuesday, Jan. 5, M2M Evolution
reported that international wireless data network communications provider
Wyless Inc. had signed a partnership deal with QuamTel Inc., a subsidiary
DataJack, as the underlying provider for Wyless’ wireless 3G services. As a company specializing in the Global Machine to Machine (M2M) wireless communications solutions, Wyless has been enabling its ASP partners to securely and reliably communicate over a private network infrastructure with their remote and mobile devices in over 120 countries in partnership with Tier 1 mobile operators. The company operates network hubs in London, England and Dallas, Texas connected to multiple GSM operators, and also operates a next generation service delivery platform for real time data management, activations and billing.
Also on Tuesday, M2M Evolution reported that the
Z-Wave Alliance has
announced availability of five Z-Wave-based iPhone apps which can be downloaded from the Apple (
News -
Alert) App Store. The apps are from Homemanageables, HomeSeer, iControl Networks, Schlage and Xanboo. The Z-Wave Alliance is an open consortium of global companies which build home control products based on Z-Wave wireless technology. Some of these apps allow users to control certain aspects of the home environment. For example, Homemanageables’s iPhone (
News -
Alert) app allows users to remotely manage home appliances using its wireless home control and monitoring system.
---
On Wednesday, Jan. 6,
Arrayent announced a new turnkey Internet connect system designed for electronic product brand owners. With the new Arrayent Internet-Connect System, users can cost effectively and reliably connect their products wirelessly to Web applications hosted in the Internet cloud. Consumers can use these Web applications for monitoring and controlling their electronic devices from any smartphone or Web browser. According to Arrayent’s CEO, Shane Dyer, the company wants to leverage the rapid acceleration of smartphone sales, the mainstream adoption of cloud computing based applications, and the preference of Internet connected products over unconnected counter parts.
Also on Wednesday,
Taoglas, an M2M antenna provider,
announced the launch of the first flexible circuit loop antenna, which the company claims can deliver over 40 percent efficiency in healthcare monitoring devices. The FLA.01 antenna is a penta-band cellular antenna that is embedded inside medical devices and can achieve high performance, particularly with customization. Company officials claim the technology can be applied to any frequency including license free bands and is particularly suited to the healthcare market because it can conform to any shape or size - a mechanical advantage for medical devices, which come in different shapes and sizes.
---
On Thursday, Jan. 7, Lok8u Ltd. a provider of location based safety solutions, and T-Mobile (
News -
Alert)
announced the deployment of micro subscriber identity module or SIM cards inside Lok8u’s wearable GPS locator devices in the U.S. These are also known as Third Form Factor or 3FF cards. The 3FF SIM cards were originally developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute and offer a smaller footprint than traditional SIM cards. They measure only 12mm x 15mm and are suitable for smaller machine-to-machine applications and other much smaller wearable devices that employ GSM technology.
---
On Friday, Jan. 8,
Xact Technology announced that it is partnering with
ORBCOMM to provide comprehensive GPS tracking solutions and services. Xact Technology’s XactTrax is a scalable GPS tracking solution that has the ability to monitor the location of people, personal and commercial property and assets. According to a release, XactTrax leverages several innovations developed by ORBCOMM (
News -
Alert) – including ORBCOMM’s device management capabilities that enable over the air updating of 3rd party software and device firmware over a wide range of devices. It is suitable for use over a range of network types, including satellite, GSM and CDMA, and offers a single interface as well as Web-based subscriber management capabilities.
---
In addition there were several interesting features posted to M2M Evolution this week, including Carl Ford’s
analysis of how the rise of VoIP, the demise of the PSTN, new and upcoming FCC broadband regulations, states’ desire to tax Internet communications, and federal broadband stimulus are converging to utterly transform the communications industry, only there’s no definitive “roadmap” for where we are headed.
There’s also a great
feature by Tom Wheeler (
News -
Alert) about how carriers need to start deploying smarter networks in order to find new revenue streams and gain more “revenue per packet.”
In addition, Ford also had a great
article yesterday about Google’s new Nexus One phone and what its launch might mean for carrier T-Mobile: Will T-Mobile’s network be ready to handle the extra traffic if the device turns out to be an “iPhone killer?”
Finally, if you want to learn more about M2M technology, be sure to check out the
M2M Summit, an event collocated with
ITEXPO East 2010, to be held Jan. 20 to 22 in Miami. This is the event you need to attend if you want to understand the role that IP communications technologies will play in the blossoming M2M market.
Register now.
See you next week!