A competitive market
Service providers such as Wireless
Maingate are the last stage in the M2M value chain. Higher up
the chain is Swedish-Japanese company Sony Ericsson, which has
a worldwide presence in the M2M market. This market is highly
competitive, as M2M services operate across normal mobile phone
networks, such as GSM and CDMA. This means that operators are
not dependent on any single technology provider. “The market
is fragmented and competitive,” says Sony Ericsson’s
Johan Birkfeldt. One of the areas in which he sees potential for
growth is the automotive sector, with positioning services and
remote
diagnostics playing a key role
in this growth. GPS, for instance, could be used in the future
to give the location of a crashed car – as soon as the airbag
is triggered, a message is sent to a control centre with the necessary
GPS co-ordinates.
Remote diagnostic solutions which
could be enabled by Sony Ericsson’s technologyinclude keeping
track of oil levels in vehicles. This application would obviously
be very useful for trucking companies. M2M technology could also
help trucking companies with their fleet management systems. |
