Eleven well-known Asia Pacific mobile operators under the Bridge Alliance formed the region’s largest Machine-to-Machine (M2M) alliance today, the biggest so far, they claimed.
The new M2M alliance shall offer a ‘one-stop-shop’ experience for M2M deployment across the Asia Pacific region and effectively becoming a center of excellence for M2M services and solutions to attract partnerships and provide customers with an end-to-end M2M regional capability.
A press release by Bridge Alliance said the new M2M Alliance shall eliminate the complexity of dealing with multiple operators “by offering seamless delivery of regional M2M services across geographical borders.” The Alliance will also improve customers’ service experience through enhanced interoperability, service levels and customer support.
M2M technology works by connecting communication hardware to a physical asset: anything from a delivery truck, service vehicle, motorcycle, boat, production machine, an ATM terminal, freezer, elevator, data center, vault and so on. Information about its present status and performance can be transmitted to a computer system and used to automate a business process or a consumer action. Data is extracted straight from a machine with limited or no human intervention. These elements benefit industries through faster operations, more accurate data gathering and improved efficiency in terms of manpower, time and costs.
Aside from Globe Telecom (Philippines), the Bridge M2M Alliance comprises Airtel (India), AIS (Thailand), CSL (Hong Kong), Maxis (Malaysia), MobiFone (Vietnam), Optus (Australia), SingTel (Singapore), SK Telecom (South Korea), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan) and Telkomsel (Indonesia). Together, the group serves a combined base of over 570 million subscribers, making it the largest M2M alliance in the Asia Pacific region.
Alessandro Adriani, Chief Executive Officer of Bridge Alliance, said Asia was made up of highly varied economies, uneven technological development and diversified regulatory requirements. As a result, multinational businesses found it extremely difficult to navigate the intricacies of the region and to fully capitalise on economies of scale. The evolution of Bridge Alliance in the M2M business was an indication of the commitment from the 11 operators to overcome these challenges.
The M2M partnership covers commercial as well as technological cooperation across various industries such as vehicle telemetry, security and energy management, among others. This enables the development of new business models, creation of new products and services as well as reduction in customers’ operational costs.
Image Credit: Bridge Alliance
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