Every year we at Machina Research undertake a very detailed study of what Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are doing in the world of M2M. This year's study was expanded to 15 CSPs including all the usual suspects (e.g. AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Vodafone etc.). There were a lot of interesting developments. Here are the highlights:
We published a press release last week.
- Vodafone retained its #1 spot, with AT&T, Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica making up the top tier of CSPs.
- Lots of work on collaboration and alliances, both in terms of the established GMA and MWA, as well as more interesting things coming up for Vodafone and the launch of the Bridge M2M Alliance. My view is that these alliances are critical but they'll evolve from being exclusive monolithic organisations to being more complementary, with different CSPs tapping into different groups to support customers.
- SoftBank is the one-to-watch for the next 12 months. Lots of interesting things to come following the acquisition of Sprint and imminent acquisition of T-Mobile USA.
- CSPs seem to be gearing up a little more for the Internet of Things. I wrote a little bit about that for M2M Now.
We published a press release last week.
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