London, UK & Mobile World Congress, Barcelona – The International M2M Council (IMC) the new trade association for the machine-to-machine (M2M) communications sector, has gained over 700 new members in the last month alone, illustrating the need for industry leadership in the sector.
The new IMC members include individuals from some of the largest enterprises deploying M2M technology in the world, such as Fedex, Hyundai, Saudi Aramco, Siemens Healthcare, Tata Group, and the US Department of Defense. The IMC reports that Telecom Italia has become the latest sustaining member to join the organisation.
As part of its mission to prove the business case for the Internet of Things (IoT), the telecom network operator has taken a seat on the board of the new group to reach companies that could benefit from deploying M2M technology.
The IMC was formed in 2013 by influential M2M technology solutions providers, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, and Oracle. The group’s first undertaking will be to publish content illustrating crucial business metrics for M2M deployments, like Return on Investment (RoI), Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and Time To Market (TTM). The content will be made available to important vertical markets where M2M is applied, such as healthcare, energy, transportation, and logistics.
The IMC says it will cover broad areas of new, life-enriching connectivity applications – sometimes called the Internet of Things – in areas such as connected cars, mobile healthcare, home security, smart grid, and mobile supply chain management.
“The IMC is the first trade group with the primary mission of communicating M2M business benefits from a global perspective. As we move up to ramp up our successful M2M business to embrace global solutions we feel this is crucial to promote the business,” says Lucy Lombardi, Telecom Italia’s Head of Partnerships & Industry Relations, who will represent the company on the IMC Board of Governors.
Telecom Italia has long been active in M2M – particularly in the healthcare, energy, metering and automotive sectors – with a complete offering of services that includes subscriber identity module (SIM) subscription and lifecycle management, shared or dedicated APN, data security, and more. Among its applications, the company’s home health diagnostics programme, called MyDoctor@Home, includes a range of patient and care-giver interfaces that can compile data from a wide range of medical devices.
The IMC was formed in May 2013 to foster widespread M2M adoption across a diverse range of industrial and consumer sectors by bringing together solution providers and adopters of M2M technology globally. Other board member companies of the International M2M Council are Digi International, Iridium, KORE, ORBCOMM and Telit Wireless Solutions. More companies are expected to join the IMC in the coming weeks.
