The benefits of M2M technology are many, and applicable to a number of industries and technologies. The most frequent examples include automotive safety — such as sending out a distress signal at the moment a car impacts another car or object with GPS coordinates.
But the possibilities in, say, healthcare, are equally helpful.
M2M technology, or the "Internet of things," requires consistent, stable connectivity to be truly effective. As such, in countries where long-range connectivity isn't as common, M2M technologies are limited. The M2M market in India, for example, is largely made up only of short-range modules such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Zigbee at the moment.
As such, for the market to take off, it requires cellular and satellite connectivity. Fortunately, a recent report released by Deloitte — a provider of audit, tax, consulting and financial advisory services — in collaboration with CII and Pune, the MIT School of Telecom Management, suggests that the M2M industry in India has the potential to reach $100 million by 2016.
Globally, the industry is estimated to hit a whopping $4.5 trillion by 2020.
"In India we have bottlenecks to growth in a number of areas and many of these can be solved using M2M applications," said Hemant Joshi, telecom leader for Deloitte India, in a statement. "This would be particularly beneficial in sectors like agriculture, utilities and healthcare."
Early adopters such as the auto, healthcare and smart appliance industries will see the most tangible benefits from this growth, of course. In fact, Wipro, a provider of business process outsourcing and system integration services, has already introduced a wearable device in the form of a necklace or belt that can track patient heart rates and send that data directly to doctors.
Meanwhile, on the automotive side of things, even concepts thought of only as science fiction a few years ago are becoming reality — such as Google's driverless car.
As with any on-the-rise technology, though, M2M has many legislative boundaries that need to be overcome, and creating a common ecosystem – or at least a handful of interoperable ecosystems – may prove to be the industry's biggest hurdle.
Edited by
Braden Becker
