Jurgen Hase, vice president of the M2M Competence Center at Deutsche Telekom and a member of the GMA management team, argues that developing an alliance based on a single vendor platform, as Jasper Wireless has done, is a losing proposition. “It’s not an open-platform strategy, and I think that will reduce its opportunities in the long term,” he told M2M Zone at the M2M World Congress event in April. “The GMA strategy is more independent of platform technology, because in the future there will be more than one [platform].”

Power to the People

It might seem like a stretch to apply the DIY ethic that arose from the anarchistic 1970s punk-music scene to the decidedly non-punk world of telecommunications, but that’s why it’s decidedly apropos—in the absence of an acceptable solution, do it yourself. Take a stand. 

In the past, operators relied on standards to fix their problems, but times have changed. Remember that, much like our own sense of liberty, standards were originally developed by CSPs for CSPs. And, the people are taking the power back. Existing software “can’t handle the amount of scale, complexity and volatility,” says Mark Cummings, “and from a society perspective, we don’t want to have just one NEM.”

The DIY efforts of the OSSii and GMA are two clear examples of how the role of standards is changing as it relates to the future of telecommunications. In order to keep up with consumer demand for new, enhanced services and prevent the stifling of innovation, new strategies must be applied. Eventually, this might include the development of a language or metalanguage, as Cummings says, that creates a “standard way of describing interfaces ... that is both human readable and machine readable.” The OSSii and GMA are steps in the right direction. Power to the People.