M2M Hype

When I get an e-mail from the good friends, I normally expect it to be about something that they are doing right, not what I am doing wrong.

 

So the note about my M2M post about the role of the carrier took me by surprise.

 

His complaints are valid, so I want to bring them up, but I also want to defend my perspective, bell head that I am.

 

His first complaint is that the Web is the answer to most issues of connectivity, so the concept of mobile operators inserting themselves in the management of the system is not needed in his opinion.

 

I agree that what exists is not a “carrier-inclusive” model. For our M2M Evolution Conference, I gave a stretch goal to our M2M network management panel of talking about the testing requirements for both the enterprise and the carrier. In my old days of servicing major customers, network management between the customer and the carrier was a big fight. Today we have lots of tunneling that makes a lot of the problems better, but there is opportunity. However, in the crawl, walk and run scale of network management, we seem to be crawling.

 

To me, carriers could bring new services with their workforce and offer hands and eyes to the remote sensors in need of dispatch. But clearly, this is not the norm.

 

His second complaint gets into the way principles of end-to-end IP and the goal of the Internet are not dependent on a carrier. Believing in the model is a lot different than the reality of the architecture. Carriers already have several layers of technology that strains the Internet vision. Routing on the Internet is a beautiful thing; Outside Plant makes overcooked spaghetti look appetizing. The real goal should be for the carrier to be able to isolate the faults in a way that allows the customer to 1) know their Internet redundancy is working and 2) isolate the fault for quick resolution.

 

His final complaint is the best, because it’s the one that asks the simple question: Here are things that are needed, is any carrier really offering it?

 

The needs include, positioning, gateways and support for things like RFID, barcode reading and other intelligence gathering data. A mobile operator that would support the customer’s ability to use those tools would be a network systems integration powerhouse. Right now most carriers are not near this level of service, so third parties are the better integrators.

 

As another friend said to me, “M2M is not a business, it’s a service to a business.” As the features and functions of Mobility for M2M expand the carrier will find the appropriate mix of application support with the transport.

 

Right now we are just at the beginning stages of enabling our future, and that is not hype.