Wireless communication – competing standards and interoperability in M2M industry

Apr 23
22:31

2012

Daniel Kidd

Daniel Kidd

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The number of M2M connected devices on the market could range from the hundreds of millions to the tens of billions over the next five years. Almost anything can be connected to something else- this could be domestic smart meters to billing systems,Wireless communication – competing standards and interoperability in M2M industry Articles to fleets of trucks to logistics databases or contactless cards to NFC payment terminals.  

With sources acting as a key infrastructure element for the discovery, storage, delivery, and management of educational content, the need to have standardised ways to support operations and functions are important.

However, the list of standards seems to be continuously expanding and the real issues of interoperability present themselves, suggesting that universal M2M connectivity isn’t quite that – at least not today. There are a number of competing standards and specifications and for people working with this on a regular basis the sheer number of specifications can be overwhelming.

In the worst case this could lead to more effort being spent on the interoperability between different standards, which will attempt to solve the same set of issues rather than solving the original problems these standards were produced for.

Rather than each network provider building their own platform for interoperability, there needs to be a universal standard for the management systems for smart devices. There are many ‘standards’ but not one unified solution and this is one reason M2M growth may have slowed down.

There is not a simple one-to-one relationship between industry standards and interoperability. The relationship is far more complex. Some industry standards are initially narrow or incomplete, and a variety of extensions and common practices grow up around them, driven by market forces.

In order for the M2M communications industry to be fully interoperable for network operators, device manufactures, application developers and end-user brands is their collective ability to work together to create an environment that is both interoperable, open and fully secure.

WAVE2M are working towards an industry standard that is proven with high levels of cross industry adoption and is an open solution in order to integrate all industry sectors and smart devices.

Wireless communication is constantly evolving and moving forward, but in order to integrate a communication standard in the M2M industry all sectors need to work together. Producing a number of competing standards only aims to confuse the industry more and may mean that in future there are more obstacles and technologies to overcome.