Looks like with this type of data coming out - the wireless carriers will start looking closely at offering M2M related products and services. Not only do they get higher revenues , but this could also result in longer term service contracts which is good for their bottom line.

Juniper Research Report -
With businesses waking up to the operational benefits and efficiency savings of real-time data monitoring, wireless telemetry or Automated Meter Reading (AMR) will lead the evolving growth in M2M markets over the coming three years and beyond, according to industry analysts Juniper Research. A Juniper study forecasts revenues rising from $11.6 billion in 2006 to $25.3 billion by 2009.

According to Juniper, the substantial rise in revenues — expected to quadruple by 2011 to $40.8bn — will contrast with limited growth in telematics from $6.4bn to $11bn in the same period, owing to current widespread usage in many commercial vehicles due to legislation. Other outlets, including security and surveillance, highway and public transport signs, and health care will show encouraging signs. The analysts predict revenues rising from a cumulative low of $2bn in 2006 to over $9bn by 2009.

Juniper’s Dr. Therese Cory, author of the study, believes the figures represent a great potential for real-time electronic data to transform enterprise performance and efficiency: “The utility industry is a prime example of how, by networking and remotely monitoring machines, data can be analysed and collective behaviour understood in new ways. For example a real-time unified view of how power is used will help safeguard this increasingly rare resource. And what can be measured can be controlled, and ultimately optimised.”

To date however, growth has been restrained. M2M projects are notoriously long-term investments taking years to initiate, due to large budgets, the length of the decision making process, and time needed to put together a custom solution from several supply chain players. Despite these hurdles, Dr. Cory insists the signs are positive: “Earlier in 2006 the Italian energy company Enel completed an installation of 30 million AMRs. The cumulative cost of this project up to 2005 was $4.48bn. In the same year, only 6 million meters were providing readings, increasing revenues by $1bn.”

Juniper expects similar cost and benefit patterns across the whole of the wireless AMR segment. the analysts note that making a business case will become easier, as more companies bite the bullet and provide success stories for others to learn from.

Remote Device Monitoring & Management
March 20 - 22, 2007 · NH Podium, Barcelona, Spain

Why should I attend?

By attending this conference you are going to hear the key strategies to improve service and saving costs using remote device monitoring and management. Learn how to build the service business and increase your revenue. Insight into the benefits for your organization of this technology: reduce responses times, increase customer satisfaction and create customer loyalty.

Who will I meet and who is speaking?

Hear presentations and share the expertise of these leading companies:

The importance of M2M business sector is one of the reason why Wireless s.r.l. has decided to renovate the appointment of M2M FORUM, on May 22nd - 23rd 2007, at Crowne Plaza Hotel Milan, Italy.

The communication between machines is matter of a growing interest on the side of the net mangers and creates a concrete meeting point between the “old economy” of the industrial automation and the “mobile economy” represented by the mobile apparatus nets (mobile phones, pads, navigators, …).
The spread of wireless technologies (ZIG-BEE, GSM/GPRS/GPS, rf-id, wifi, W-Lan, Bluetooth) and the costs’ reduction of the transmittant apparatus allow lots of builders to make the machines installed on a landscape reachable from a center of remote control (such as counters, burglar alarms, parking meters and distributors).
The importance of this business field is also higlighted by the forecast of a recent survey conducted by Strategy Analitics, according to which in 2007 the M2M market could arrived to value 40 thousands of dollars.
That is one of the reason why Wireless s.r.l. has decided to renovate the appointment of M2M FORUM, on May 22nd - 23rd 2007, at Crowne Plaza Hotel Milan, Italy.

Numerex Corp.,recently announced the launch of SMSXpress a wireless network service optimized for remote monitoring and M2M applications. Designed to simplify M2M network deployment and reduce network costs, SMSXpress represents the ideal wireless network solution for a wide variety of fixed and mobile applications.

For Numerex solution partners and customers, SMSXpress provides the best price-performance network option available for M2M applications. The solution delivers a range of benefits to customers, including rapid application development through a network interface that facilitates quicker time to market. In addition, SMSXpress features extremely low-latency message delivery appropriate for a wide variety of critical applications, including security, telematics, environmental, and asset tracking.

SMSXpress’s architecture and Numerex’s network switching and operations centers are designed to support mission critical applications in high production. Featuring a geographically redundant, multi-server architecture, the SMSXpress Gateway provides load sharing redundancy, eliminating single points of failure. With multiple servers, SMSXpress is fully scalable for growth, eliminating capacity concerns. In addition, SMSXpress features flexible electronic billing for all active devices as well as continuous 24×7 customer support and care.

“SMSXpress is the latest wireless network solution announced by Numerex as the Company continues to lead the M2M industry with a portfolio of network offerings for both fixed and mobile solutions,” said Chuck Horne, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Numerex. “With the industry’s lowest-latency message delivery and auto-acknowledgement of messages, SMSXpress features the pricing, reliability, and service that our customers demand and are cornerstones of Numerex Network offerings.”

In support of SMSXpress, Numerex also announces the launch of the DigiCell AnyNET network modem. A multi-network device, the AnyNET modem is an integral component of the Uplink wireless security solution, deployed in March 2006. With thousands of AnyNET devices deployed, the AnyNET device for SMSXpress provides a proven product that further streamlines and simplifies SMSXpress deployments.

M2M, Automation, Telemetry, Remote Monitoring, LBS

Industrial Device Networking in Action: Rockwell Automation
Rockwell Automation is one of the leading global providers of industrial automation power, control, and information solutions that help customers meet their manufacturing objectives. One of the company’s leading brands is Allen-Bradley®, a manufacturer of automation controls and a provider of engineering services. Allen-Bradley control solutions have set a high standard in industrial automation, helping the industry apply programmable logic controller (PLC) technology for the past 30 years.

Rockwell’s customers needed to remotely access and manage their PLCs where only a serial interface was available. To meet their needs, Rockwell designed an industrial device networking server to provide Ethernet/IP connectivity. Their device server provided a gateway from their controllers serial port to an Ethernet network. This allowed their customers to upload/download programs, communicate between controllers, and generate email messages via SMTP (simple mail transport protocol). The result: Rockwell Automation enhanced the capabilities of their PLCs and allowed their customers to remotely access their controllers from anywhere in the world.

Industrial Device Networking in Action: Texas Instruments
In the case of Texas Instruments, the world leader in digital signal processing and analog technologies that drive semiconductor engines, the company needed secure remote access to all its process control equipment at the company’s Support Center, while keeping costs and wiring at a minimum. The company needed to measure and read the concentration of contaminants in water samples. Before deploying industrial device networking, the process used by the company was complicated, involving the transfer of a signal from a water analyser to a PLC to an HMI where reading of the measurement was often flawed. While the company’s Facility Control Centre operated process control equipment on a legacy network, independent of their LAN, they needed to network-enable all of the process control equipment at the Support Centre which would have required 1,500 feet of wiring and conduit spanning multiple buildings for added expense and time.

By implementing an industrial device networking solution on multiple key pieces of equipment such as airflow, water and gas detectors at its fabrication facility, its Support Centre can now remotely monitor and control critical elements of the fabrication factory (airflow, water treatment and gas detection) in an adjacent facility. By integrating the industrial device networking solution, all of its equipment in the Support Centre is Ethernet-enabled, allowing more than 500 PCs in the centre to have access in real-time to information as it is generated by the process control equipment. As a result, it was no longer necessary for a technician to patrol the floor of the fabrication to monitor each device individually and response time was significantly improved whenever a failure was detected.

These are just two examples of how industrial device networking can revolutionise the world of industrial manufacturing. By quickly and reliably connecting virtually any piece of factory equipment to a network or the Internet, industrial manufacturers gain the ability to interactively access, manage, control, evaluate and utilise data transmitted from the devices. This powerful, yet simple to implement technology allows manufacturers to perform real-time diagnostics and repair, automate data capture and gain immediate notification of problems, virtually from anywhere over an Internet connection.

M2M, Automation, Telemetry, Remote Monitoring, LBS