Even with the risks, building and marketing a secure, reliable M2M platform is becoming a top business priority for many CSPs; Telefonica, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Sprint, and many others are all highly active in M2M. Global CSPs have also partnered to benefit from their combined scale and accelerate time to market. The best example was seen in July, when KPN, NTT Docomo, Rogers, Singtel, Telefonica, Telstra, and Vimpelcom combined forces to create a seamless, global M2M platform. The alliance is providing a global product featuring a unique SIM, as well as a united Web interface and centralized management of status and usage of M2M devices globally, via the Jasper Wireless Control Center. Notably, nothing of this scale in M2M has been announced by U.S. mobile operators.

Opportunities for BSS/OSS providers

Companies traditionally identified as BSS and OSS providers will greatly benefit from the M2M ecosystem, provided they can adapt their solutions for the new market. Piotr Machnik, EVP of Comarch, believes that “new business models like B2B and B2B2C ecosystems with multipartner value chains and all-IP services can’t be managed in the old-fashioned style, typical for OSS/BSS silos.” Raco Wireless’s John Horn agrees: “You are going to see entirely new systems, tools and support solutions come out of this.”

The M2M management and security platform must manage hundreds of millions of devices while efficiently reporting, billing and logging on the individual device level. M2M management, security and billing solutions will have to take into account the massive volume of authenticated devices, while at the same time they must be able to function very efficiently, as the ARPU for M2M transactions is small. It’s a unique challenge.

Foundation for the future

Luckily, there is still time to build a secure and profitable foundation for the future. Recent reports indicate M2M hasn’t gained ground as fast as analysts had predicted, quite possibly due to the fact that security still must be ironed out and standards have yet to be universally applied. However, the market will undergo many changes in the near future as venture capital flows in and consolidation occurs at the top. There is still plenty of room for both niche players and tier 1 CSPs to differentiate, and security is a great place to start.