Machine-to-Machine continues to emerge as a potent technology that improves nearly every facet of business, across many kinds of organizations. That’s because M2M can allow for market and revenue growth, operational efficiency, safety, and security.
The use cases for M2M are broad. It can be employed to create savings and new revenue opportunities in a variety of applications such as asset management, business collaboration, enterprise mobility management, field force management, fleet management, retail, usage-based insurance, and much more.
To get the most out of an M2M deployment, however, you need to have the right ingredients and work with a partner that knows how to fold them all together to create the right mixture and balance. Sprint (News 
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“Sprint understands the complexity and challenges businesses face in developing and rolling out M2M solutions,” says Nasser. “The growing impact of the Internet of Everything can bring advantages to companies’ bottom lines, including increased revenue and reduced expenses, higher productivity, and an enhanced customer experience.”
The network is, of course, a key part of the value Sprint brings to the table.
The company offers clients the ability to access wireless data service in more than 165 countries around the world through the Sprint Global IP network. Sprint’s wireless network employs 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies. The company leverages CDMA both for 2G (1xRTT) and 3G wireless networks, and its 4G network is based on LTE (News - Alert).
While some network operators are sunsetting their 2G networks, Sprint continues to deliver 2G to provide customers with the flexibility to choose the connectivity that best meets their needs. That’s because different verticals and businesses have different bandwidth needs. Take connected transportation, asset tracking, metering and monitoring applications.
“Most of the M2M applications are bursty and not thirsty for data,” says Nasser.
At the same time, Sprint delivers higher-speed networks and connectivity to support customers with more bandwidth-intensive applications like advertising, digital signage, public safety, and video.
“The beauty of Sprint’s widespread bandwidth offerings and network assets is that it has the ability to take a customer from low bandwidth and graduate them up as they’re ready – the big emphasis is on the customer and helping them achieve the goal at hand,” says Nasser.
With 55 million customers, and more than 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies, Sprint is a proven entity in the communications arena. It has long been a leader in networking and is a pioneer in wireless specifically. For example, Sprint was the first national carrier in the U.S. to introduce 4G service and was a leader in introducing international push-to-talk capabilities.
Sprint goes far beyond just the network piece in helping customers create M2M solutions, however. Given M2M is about solutions, and not just connectivity and devices, that’s key. M2M requires a deeper understanding of customer needs and goals, and of the verticals in which those customers exist, Nasser notes.
Understanding those requirements, Sprint offers guidance on how M2M can be used to meet the specific goals of each business, providing insight on what data should be collected; the best tools to aggregate, analyze and propagate that information; and assistance to enable businesses to operationalize what’s learned in the process. Sprint helps outfit M2M customers with the right mix of billing, customer care, data analytics, management tools (including self-service device management) – and a single portal through which they can use any device and connection to see their M2M network and devices.
In what many view as a fragmented ecosystem, Sprint brings together its own expertise, along with the experience and offerings of an ecosystem of partners, to provide comprehensive M2M solutions to organizations. That ecosystem includes a community of software vendors, system integrators, application platform providers, hardware manufacturers, wireless module providers, and mobile operators.
Its comprehensive approach to M2M has earned Sprint a position on Connected World’s CW 100 list of the most important and influential providers of M2M services for nine consecutive years. Machina Research ranks Sprint among the top global players on its M2M Leaderboard.
M2M offers organizations a wealth of opportunities to save on costs and generate new revenues. Indeed, 94 percent of businesses see a return on M2M, with 36 percent seeing significant return.
With a partner like Sprint – which delivers long-term network choice and global reach,
extensive support services, a global platform with managed service options, packaged and custom-made solutions designed to meet customer needs, and an expansive, diverse ecosystem – organizations are bettered positioned to get the full flavor of M2M by meeting and exceeding their goals.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi
