The multi-lateral agreement will provide roaming services with enhanced service quality across participating countries. France Telecom-Orange and Deutsche Telekom first established the cooperation agreement in February of this year, which included coverage of France, Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Since then Holland and the UK have also been added, the latter through an agreement with UK operator Everything Everywhere.
The agreement with TeliaSonera will extend the co-operation’s global footprint to Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania.
Håkan Dahlström, president of mobility services at TeliaSonera, said the co-operation “with three of the strongest brands in the market enhances our international offers”.
“We know that the services connected to M2M communication in many cases is vital for business and put clear requirements on us as a communication operator,” he said. “The co-operation will enhance a better customer experience cross border in our markets and increase quality in our offers that will support the development of M2M services,”
The agreement particularly focuses on incident and troubleshooting capabilities, providing a dedicated support component for all M2M roaming services. All three companies believe this offers a much shorter repair time compared to previous industry efforts.
The companies also aim to conduct joint testing to harmonise module standards, which they hope will lead to a quicker and more optimised integration of the modules in M2M customers’ devices and machines.
“M2M communication is an enabling technology for e-Energy, e-Health, Connected Home and the Connected Car, for example, to bring about the internet of things. The M2M market has been growing exponentially lately, with potential for enterprises to drive new business, improve performance, reduce cost, and protect environment,” said Rainer Deutschmann, SVP of mobile products at Deutsche Telekom.
M2M communications typically use low bandwidths for a raft of applications, ranging from industrial machinery flagging up problems or the need for a service, to security systems alerting control rooms of breaches and domestic white goods having the capability to be programmed remotely. To learn more about M2M connectivity click here.
