One of the many ways companies are looking to make money with connected machines is through fleet telematics. According to Frost & Sullivan, growth opportunities are developing rapidly in the global connected truck/commercial vehicle telematics market as revenue is driven by OEM partnerships with third-party telematics services providers (TSPs), open architecture platforms, and regulatory mandates

According to analysts, this year is likely to be game-changing in the Global Connected Truck/Commercial Vehicle (CV) telematics market. Developed regions such as North America and Europe will continue to dominate the global connected truck market in 2016, contributing more than 57 percent of the total telematics installed base.

Panasonic also sees the automotive market as a way to rev up IoT revenues. Panasonic subsidiary Aupeo GmbH this month announced its collaboration with Triton Digital. The partnership will allow Panasonic OneConnect to leverage Triton Digital’s advertising platform, Tap OnDemand, to insert targeted ads into the personalized audio messages delivered by the Personal Radio by AUPEO!® content delivery service. This will enable car manufacturers and brand partners to provide drivers with personalized audio messages in and out of the vehicle to support an array of driving and mobility use opportunities. 

AT&T is going out of this world to support IoT connectivity by teaming up with Globecomm to launch a new satellite service that will help companies better manage their IoT deployments and track assets in hard-to-reach places where cellular service may be limited or unavailable. 

Ceding space to AT&T, GE and Oracle instead set their sights on world domination, partnering to help digitally connect every industrial asset across the globe as part of a comprehensive digital industrial ecosystem. The two companies announced a strategic partnership to develop a global IoT platform-as-a-service (PaaS), purpose-built for developing, deploying, operating and monetizing industrial Internet applications.

Content is still king

With old-fashioned voice service rapidly becoming a thing of the past, carriers are embracing content as the new way to revenue. Exploding broadband demand mirrors consumer’s hunger for data and content, delivered to a variety of devices. As a result, carriers, content developers, and entertainment companies are all jumping in the pool. 

One of the biggest announcements came from Verizon and DreamWorks Animation as the carrier revealed it has agreed to purchase Awesomeness TV, owned by Dreamworks Animation, as part of a plan to create a first-of-its-kind premium short-form mobile video service and broadcast-quality content. 

Not done, Verizon also announced that it and Hearst have entered into an agreement to acquire Complex in a plan to expand a joint portfolio of millennial digital video channels. The two companies are splitting the acquisition of the network of millennial-male-oriented pop culture sites, which will develop premium video content for distribution across Verizon digital platforms. 

With more and better content becoming available through a wide variety of distribution channels, Broadpeak announced it is launching a new content delivery network (CDN) technology. The new solution enables content providers worldwide to use real-time data and analytics to select the best CDN and improve end-user quality-of-service (QoS) and quality-of-experience (QoE). 

For its part, IBM is concerned about the quality of video being broadcast over the Internet, so it unveiled its new Aspera FASPStream software for streaming video content over IP networks. The new turnkey software line is designed to stream live broadcast-quality video globally over commodity Internet networks, reducing the need for expensive and limited satellite-based backhaul, transport, and distribution.