Deutsche Telekom has made major strides in developing M2M initiatives, with the launch of its M2M Marketplace last year targeting buyers and sellers of products in 2012. It is also growing its M2M developer community to support solutions and users.
The company’s VP of M2M competence centre, Jürgen Hase, said that strategic alliances will be essential in shaping the future of the M2M market.
“Alliances will work to overcome a major challenge in the long run: to provide seamless services in all countries,” he said. “Alliances are becoming increasingly necessary to improve quality of service and establish M2M communication standards.”
Development in M2M initiatives has been touted as a strong area for growth by many of the larger European operators, as companies in the region aim to improve on low returns generated in 2012 across the entire sector.
In addition to alliances, Deutsche Telekom is further targeting the link between M2M and big data as a way to potentially find new revenues streams, in particular by utilising M2M to analyse big data trends.
Hase commented on M2M’s evolutionary phase and for operators to potentially invest further in different areas of the service. “The real benefits of M2M will become apparent by analysing data. It is already possible to detect attrition in production facilities by analysing data in real time,” he said. “Combined with machine learning algorithms, such as applications, we will recognise more and more patterns and allow completely new insights in our businesses.”
At the end of last year, Telekom Austria became the latest European operator to outline its focus on M2M after claiming it has struck up to 80 deals with enterprise customers for M2M. Its latest initiative, announced in December 2012, is intended to focus on the CEE region.
Machine Research claims the market for M2M in CEE will grow up to €70 billion by 2020, rising from the €10 billion it stood at last year.
Look out for Capacity's upcoming M2M Business Briefing 2013 - exploring all the complex issues and opportunities that lie ahead for carriers in what is unquestionably one of the fastest growing sectors in the telecoms arena.
