This month’s unveiling of the Iridium 9603, the company’s latest data module, has set the bar spectacularly high for all devices designed for embedding into M2M solutions. The significantly reduced profile of the 9603 breaks down design barriers, being the world’s smallest two-way satellite data transceiver, and ensures its place in the hand-held and similar sized devices market.

The ‘smaller-than-a-matchbook device’ offers new ways for people and assets to make necessary, two-way connections reliably, in near real-time. Personnel tracking, mobile field monitoring, defence, research, search and rescue, remote sensing and even U.S. forces around the world are only some of the 9603 application areas.

This type of technology is already being actively incorporated into products, with speculative launch dates being considered as early as June of this year, and we can understand this anticipation. Joel Thompson, vice president of product management at Iridium stated that with this device, “Iridium is disrupting the global M2M market […] through our innovative approaches to reduce the size of our data and voice/data modules.” We do not hesitate to agree and will be keeping a watchful eye on the progress of this and other devices in the near future.

Another day, another report lands telling us what the size of the M2M market is likely to be. This time the report comes from Visiongain Analysis and the reported (entitled M2M: Opportunities and Challenges with Connected Devices 2012-2017) concludes that M2M is soon to become an integral part of the telecoms landscape.

According to the report, the M2M market will reach the grand sum of $38bn in revenues in 2012 alone. That’s a significant upgrade on most of the recent estimates we’ve seen. According to Visiongain operators are eagerly turning toward the M2M market as an opportunity to grow their stagnating revenue streams.

Visiongain believes that M2M is poised for massive growth in 2012 through to 2017 as operators seek to develop more sophisticated solutions ecosystems and take advantage of coming improvements in network technology and performance.

We came across this excellent article recently that touches on many issues that are sure to grow in importance over the coming few months.

There are yet more figures here relating to the possible size of the market and the speed of its growth and unsurprisingly, they are contradictory. IDC are apparently suggesting that M2M apps will be a $16bn market while Garner point to a figure of around $25bn by 2015. One thing is for sure though, as M2M adoption increases it’s inevitable that the complexity of the M2M market will increase too.

New applications will inevitably be developed, new partnerships formed, new business models created and new entrants will enter the market. The end result of all this frantic activity could be additional layers of complexity and cost that may hinder the market in the short term if they’re not nipped in the bud. As the article points out, complicated strategic relationships and complex contracts will benefit no-one and the message seems clear – when you are looking for an M2M partnership, look for transparency and simplicity. Be sure you know who you are dealing with an work together for a clear, defined and achievable SLA.

A recent press release from ETSI trumpeted the success of its new M2M standards during a recent interoperability workshop.

The workshop was attended by a number of the industry’s big hitters and showcased how the interoperability of standards-based solutions are fundamental to the success of the M2M market. In total thirteen organisations attended the event which covered a range of M2M application: Smart Energy, Environmental Sensing, mHealth, Intelligent Transport, Ambient Assisted Living, Personal Robots, Home Automation. Medical Appliances and Smart Metering.

The demonstrations covered a number of key architectural components specified in the new ETSI M2M standard such as devices, gateways and gateway interfaces, applications and access technologies. We made the point in an earlier blog post about the importance of removing perceived adoption roadblocks (and interop is one of those) so this is a good step forward and we’ll be keenly watching for further details.

Cellular Asset Tracking

Some white space

The upcoming analogue TV switch-off opens up some exciting opportunities for utilities and other companies to exploit smart grid communications according to this fascinating article on Smartgrid Opinions.

TV White Space is the name given to the naturally occurring gaps in the spectrum used by TV bands. This “white space”, along with the numerous channels that are soon to be freed up as we transition to digital broadcast, offers a host of possibilities for new services and business models. Why? Well, for a start it’s cheap as using the spectrum is free. It’s available globally and (once the analogue switch is complete) there will be masses of bandwidth available.

There’s a lot of excitement growing around the use of TVWS at the moment as this recent Radio 4 broadcast illustrates. It’s an appealing technology for a number of different market sectors and applications such as M2M, rural broadband provision and smartgrid look set to benefit as adoption grows.

There’s still a long way to go though. As the article explains, the technology is complex, the ecosystem is immature and there is little existing regulation and standardisation to work.

Watch this (white) space…

Starting in 2013 that means the national roll-out of up to 35 million electricity smart meters across the country at a cost of around €4.3 bn.

The news was announced by French minister for Industry Eric Besson who claimed that 7 million of the meters (known as “Linkys”) would be deployed by the end of 2014, with the remainder due for national roll-out by the end of 2018. This would out the French well ahead of the EU’s 2020 target.

The installation is to be carried out by ERDF, the largest distribution system operator in France and a division of energy company EDF. The project is expected to generate more than 10,000 jobs for the French economy and should help French companies gain valuable experience and a headstart in the soon-to-explode smart grid market.

Not everyone’s delighted with the news though, new figures seen by Le Parisien newspaper suggest that the average French consumer could see a rise in energy prices (€2 per month and a one-off €42 charge) unless the French goverment makes the decision to subsidise the cost of these 35 million units.