KORE Blog

What does CTIA 2013 have in store for M2M and KORE?

Long-standing producers in traditional industrial fields — whether they make coffee machines, cars, air conditioners, home gym equipment, or shoes — are suddenly not only competing with companies of their own breed; they are also confronting players the likes of which they have never faced before.

The annual CTIA conference seems to sneak up on us every year. Just as the weather begins to turn in earnest for most U.S. geographies, members of the mobile marketplace all get to trot off to Las Vegas for a week. As a preview to the massive amount of newsworthy and not so newsworthy information and coverage coming out of the event, I thought I would share my M2M industry perspective before attention spans lapse completely.  

In a previous post, we asked if M2M was at a tipping point, where business leaders have come to trust its value, without reserve. Looking at CTIA’s agenda for 2013 and some other factors I’ll talk about below, it is getting harder not to arrive at the unequivocal answer of “absolutely yes.”

For example, this is the first year that I can remember M2M having its own entry under the primary CTIA Program masthead. We are especially eager to see the session about business models that will serve and stimulate relationships between people and things. This has been a standing theme for us, solving that tension between novelty and long-term value proposition of IoT applications.

On Wednesday, May 22 our president, Alex Brisbourne, will himself take the stage to discuss how these issues are playing out in two distinct markets: healthcare and energy grid management.

In “Wireless Healthcare Looks for Business Models,” Brisbourne and his fellow panelists will discuss the opportunities for M2M in the healthcare industry from wearable technologies to clinical analytics.

In the “New Impetus for the Smart Grid,” the conversation turns toward government initiatives in the smart grid and how the Internet-of-Things could be a game changer for Hybrid-Electric Vehicles (EVs) and electricity storage.

Even moving beyond CTIA, I can think of no better validation for M2M as a business initiative than to read about it in Harvard Business Review this week. The author adroitly touches upon what KORE considers to be its sweet spot: helping "Old Economy" companies remake traditional, physical products into smart and connected ones.

Ultimately, bridging this gap to infuse M2M/IoT capabilities into what we consider to be traditional product lines—with minimal up-front investment and low total cost-of-ownership—is where the game will be won or lost as companies who innovate will drastically outperform their peers who lag in investing in M2M-enablement.

By Stein Soelberg, Director of Marketing

Stein leads a team whose responsibility is to own the branding, advertising, customer engagement, loyalty, partnership and public relations initiatives designed to propel KORE into the 21^st century. With over 15 years of technology marketing experience in the business to business software, Internet services and telecommunications industries, Stein brings a proven track record of launching successful MVNOs and building those brands into leaders.

 

M2M Keeps Hand Hygiene Compliance in Hospitals Up

"Germs are not visible now. They will become visible through information."

The New Yorker published an article a few weeks ago on the rise of Purell… little did I know that it would end up being a story about M2M. M2M continues to play a larger role in the healthcare industry and this is yet another example of how the technology is impacting the day-to-day operations of hospitals around the World.

The piece focuses on the creation and upbringing of Purell, a now household name product that was created by mom and pop company, Gojo. However, towards the end of the article, author David Owen dives into the use of Purell stations in hospitals to monitor hand hygiene compliance and our M2M radar went off.

Hospitals need to be the cleanest places on earth with the cleanliest and most hygienic staff. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Owen states that hand hygiene compliance rates, meaning the number of times a healthcare provider washes/sanitizes their hands before and after seeing a patient, is staggeringly low – as low as 20% of the time in some cases. Seeing these numbers has scared healthcare leaders into finding ways to ensure that their staff is complying with hospital hand washing policies.

In most hospital rooms today there is a Purell dispenser that has been outfitted with a small chip that communicates with the RFID chip in an employee’s hospital badge. This process enables hospitals to track whether employees are washing their hands before AND after seeing a patient – sounds like M2M to me. This data is then readily available through a dashboard to show a hospital CEO who is complying with hand hygiene policies and who isn’t. It also allows hospitals to set benchmarks and goals when trying to increase overall hand hygiene compliance. But most importantly, if there is ever a large scale contamination event, the hospital has data that may be analyzed to determine whether or not hand sanitation could have been a contributing factor. In other words, making germs visible through information.

While this monitoring of hand hygiene has an element of ‘big brother’, its sole purpose is to increase patient safety and quality of care. M2M is being more broadly adopted across the healthcare industry and becoming an integral part in the operations of hospitals, only fueling the future of the Internet-of-Things.

By Stein Soelberg, Director of Marketing

Stein leads a team whose responsibility is to own the branding, advertising, customer engagement, loyalty, partnership and public relations initiatives designed to propel KORE into the 21^st century. With over 15 years of technology marketing experience in the business to business software, Internet services and telecommunications industries, Stein brings a proven track record of launching successful MVNOs and building those brands into leaders.

Pondering the Future of 2G M2M Networks

Wireless Week recently published an article on the current state of 2G M2M networks pontificating about what the future will hold for M2M applications and devices residing on 2G, particularly given AT&T’s plans to transition this spectrum by 2017 in North America to 3 and 4G.

The article highlights some interesting facts/predictions from Cisco’s Annual Data Forecast report, namely:

• 64 percent of global mobile M2M connections rely on 2G connectivity today
• 35 percent are connected via 3G
• 1 percent are connected via 4G

Based on these numbers, one’s first instinct may be to question AT&T’s rationale behind shutting down its 2G network service. As with all major business decisions, it’s not entirely black and white.  Managing multiple networks, limited spectrum and optimizing their usage from a business perspective can be challenging, particularly when the iPhone or Android wielding data-hungry consumer paying large monthly recurring services fees is their primary customer acquisition target.

This all raises possibly the biggest question in the 2G debate — how will the AT&T 2G shutdown impact the roaming options of M2M devices still residing on other 2G networks outside of North America? AT&T currently boasts a very large 2G footprint, forcing M2M device or application providers to consider how the transition may impact mobile M2M devices that require cross-border roaming to work as they plan for the future. In fact, the same Cisco report predicts that by 2017, only 32 percent of global M2M modules will operate on 2G networks, with 59 percent residing on 3G networks.

The reduction in the cost of 3G devices has decreased in recent years, making the migration to 3G more economical for new devices to replace 2G devices at the end of their life spans. While applications such as fleet tracking may not require 3G data speeds for normal connectivity, the future-proofing provided by hybrid 2G/3G devices ensures interoprability for tomorrow.

As for the consumer-driven LTE networks, early indicators are that the broader M2M market will likely take its time converting to this high speed network variant. Interoperability around the supported frequencies for LTE remains unclear. This point, when added to the limited need for ultra-high bandwidth M2M applications as well as the length of time required to realize an ROI with this technology costs likely means that widespread LTE M2M is still several years out.

At KORE, we believe that 3G is the logical evolution for reliable, cost-effective and ubiquitous M2M connectivity. However, there are still great 2G coverage options outside of North America for M2M. And as always, we will work tirelessly to ensure that each customer’s unique M2M connectivity requirements are met, whether that is via 2G, 3G, 4G or satellite.

By Felix Chuang, Senior Product Manager

Felix Chuang is Senior Product Manager at KORE Telematics, an industry leader in the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) wireless market. He has more than fifteen years of experience in the Internet and wireless industries in a broad range of roles such as product management, business development, and operations.  He is currently focused on the KORE Global Connect product line, which provides a single SIM for M2M network service in 180+ countries and 230+ carriers.

He can be found on twitter at: @felixc and KORE Telematics can be found at: @koretelematics

Is M2M at its tipping point?

Machine-to-machine communications is said to have reached its tipping point, the fine line where awareness, supplier activity and demand – combined with unit economics costs making M2M affordable for mass adoption – suddenly meet to create a burgeoning market for new services.

I came across an article at Enterprise IT News last week that puts good context around much of what we’ve been saying about M2M market growth. Namely, that growth will come largely in very specific, vertical segments.

The piece took note that M2M had a definite buzz around it at Mobile World Congress this year, much more noticeably than in the past. But what really caught our attention was the solid, visible path to M2M that a number of KORE business partners are forging, including ILS Technology.

“The first [step] is wireless and connectivity ubiquity, so the affordability and availability is there,” said ILS CEO Fred Yentz. Our ears perked at this of course since we’ve worked to build M2M connectivity and device management right into the ILS platform.

Yentz goes on to observe that sheer awareness about what M2M can do is a key driving force for growth – “from the business leaders and the C-suites trying to make their business run better, to the vendors” trying to develop new money-making services around M2M.

The author was sure to balance these bullish observations by pointing out the complexities of global M2M device connectivity, an issue that has been near and dear to us for several years now. He quotes Ovum Analyst Pauline Trotter on the lack of a truly global network mobile operator and, in so doing, highlights one of the modus operandi of KORE GlobalConnect^TM ; plumb once and gain pole-to-pole connectivity with native in-country connections.

And finally, the article validates much of what we’ve been saying about M2M all along:

• Some of the numbers thrown around about M2M device growth have probably been “overly ambitious.”
• Mobile trumps fixed – fixed, wireline M2M connectivity is being dwarfed by the propagation of mobile sensors connected via cellular or satellite services.
• There is stronger takeup in Asia Pacific, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. KORE has been an aggressive player in these markets for years.
• Machine devices are not huge generators of sustained data traffic.
• While M2M device ARPU is considerably less than consumer devices to be sure, it actually presents a great business case because the acquisition and support costs are so much lower.

Is M2M at a tipping point? It is certainly at a point where more business leaders are recognizing its value. Our job remains to continue focusing on empowering those value-adding, life-improving applications that show demonstrable ROI for the application provider.

By Stein Soelberg, Director of Marketing

Follow Stein on Twitter: @sesoelberg

Stein leads a team whose responsibility is to own the branding, advertising, customer engagement, loyalty, partnership and public relations initiatives designed to propel KORE into the 21^st century. With over 15 years of technology marketing experience in the business to business software, Internet services and telecommunications industries, Stein brings a proven track record of launching successful MVNOs and building those brands into leaders.

Partner Spotlight: LocusTraxx Helps Ensure Perishable Goods Stay Fresh

Have you ever wondered how those Florida oranges make it all the way to your grocery store, ripe and fresh? Or what about those daisies you sent to your mom on Mother’s Day? Well you can thank M2M communications and companies like LocusTraxx for helping ensure that your perishable deliveries arrive on time and in peak freshness. Powered by the KORE network, LocusTraxx OverSight™ is a wireless dashboard that is connected and monitors the safety and security of shipments through automated self-reporting.

OverSight blends LocusTraxx’s SmartTraxx™ telematics with SmartTag™ wireless sensors to continuously monitor and send and receive data on shipment temperature, security and location of vehicles. This data is crucial in ensuring the timing and freshness of the perishable products being shipped. If the temperature in a truck full of meat gets too high, the fleet manager and driver are alerted to the issue in real-time, allowing them to correct it and save thousands of dollars in potential lost product.  

On one particular day in 2012, Allen Lund, a shipping company, was tasked with delivering 75 shipments of Valentine’s Day flowers out of Miami to locations along the East Coast. Along the route, eight loads triggered alerts that there was an issue with the delivery. Of those eight shipments, six of them were adjusted in the field by the drivers, while the other two trucks were redirected to a service center for repairs and back on the road in no time. In sum, all 75 shipments were delivered on time and in an acceptable condition, saving many people the trouble of being wrongfully blamed for forgetting Valentine’s Day.

LocusTraxx not only helped many consumers save face on Valentine’s Day, but it also helped Allen Lund save tens of thousands of dollars in potential lost revenue – all thanks to M2M-powered alerts. When it comes to the safety and security of perishable goods, LocusTraxx and KORE have you covered, no matter where you are.

Robert Metzler, EVP Sales and Marketing

With over 20 years experience in leading winning sales teams, Bob joins KORE to drive adoption of KORE in the market by capitalizing on our unique service, management and billing capabilities, coupled with the most comprehensive and skilled network of partners, all dedicated to delivering the most reliable and relevant solutions for our customers, every day.

Alex Brisbourne lends perspective to M2MNow blogspace

Over at M2MNow this week, KORE President Alex Brisbourne takes note of M2M moving to the ‘mainstream’ at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2013, but offers his signature cautionary outlook when it comes to ascribing big numbers to discrete, internet-subscribed devices in the foreseeable future.

Rather than presenting the Internet-of-Things as an overall "economic value" creator, Alex believes value will present itself in models that are hyper-relevant to specific market segments. There is not really an apt umbrella. Over the next three to five years, he says, the lion’s share of M2M growth will be fuelled by narrowcast solutions: a transport company might deploy a simple application for driver tracking, which could then be layered with route planning or fuel monitoring modules. Bankers will be enabling "temporary" ATMs to be set up at trade fairs, as well as point-of-sale transactions for remote service personnel. Medical innovators will be looking for ways to move glucose monitoring for diabetics into a remote, real-time environment.

If we go too far with projections, we risk making too big of a splash in the pond of excitement and emptying it, because nothing much sticks. It is much more helpful to take a measured and realistic approach to discovering value in this market.

How does Ayantra keep the “Always on” maxim well, always on?

In our unending goal to provide you, our readers, with examples of the Internet-of-Things in action, today we bring to you the story of Ayantra, a fascinating company using KORE to provide an often overlooked value to homeowners. Its product, myGENcare, is an M2M-connected monitoring system for residential power generators. It automatically reports to its users the real-time status of utility power coming to the home, on-site power, and the engine hours, battery level and fault status for their generator. For anyone who’s lived through the major weather events in the U.S. over the past few years, such a simple-yet-precious use of IoT technology can clearly be viewed as a godsend.

Ayantra also elegantly illustrates our point that every Internet-of-Things application is, by some varying degree, an asset management and control application. From there, it becomes a mere matter of specializing and fine-tuning which physiological factors you want to monitor or control. In this case, generator manufacturers and third-party service companies can implement a distinct “management by exception” plan to offer ongoing peace-of-mind for customers (and, incidentally, boost the appeal during the sales cycle).

Typical factors monitored here would be:

• Battery Problems – Most batteries weaken slowly over time before failing completely. By monitoring the battery level, the generator service company can repair or swap-out a weak battery before it has a chance to fail.
  
  
• Low Fuel – Detecting a “Low Fuel” condition before it matters will prevent an avoidable generator failure.
  
  
• Fault Alarms – By detecting Fault conditions on a generator, the generator service company can schedule onsite service to repair the generator before an emergency occurs.
  
  
• Failure to Exercise – Most generators automatically exercise on a weekly basis. Failure to perform the weekly exercise can indicate a problem. Detecting such “Failure to Exercise” conditions can again avoid the chance of failure during emergency situations.

Ayantra ensures close to 100 percent uptime for monitored generators and also gives generator servicers the means to offer extensive cost savings for customers, by eliminating unnecessary service calls that typically run more than $75 per. Taken together, all of this is classic asset management, tuned to the specific task of delivering “always on” electricity for homeowners.

Robert Metzler, EVP Sales and Marketing

With over 20 years experience in leading winning sales teams, Bob joins KORE to drive adoption of KORE in the market by capitalizing on our unique service, management and billing capabilities, coupled with the most comprehensive and skilled network of partners, all dedicated to delivering the most reliable and relevant solutions for our customers, every day.

Application Spotlight: Telehealth in Action

It has been clear to us for some time that telehealth is on the move as a potent application for M2M communication. A couple of years ago, the medical device category was growing by only 2 percent from a much smaller base. It is a market on the move largely because of the obvious tangible value that telehealth offers to both medical and patient communities.

As measure of this value, the American Heart Association just issued new guidelines for early stroke treatment endorsing the use of telemedicine, for the first time in its history. The new guidelines appear in the American Heart Association’s journal Stroke and support the development of regional networks of stroke centers, acute stroke-ready hospitals and community hospitals. At the same time, new legislation sponsored by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) calls for Medicare reimbursement of telestroke services.

In practice, telestroke services put stroke diagnosticians "virtually" at the bedside of any patient, either to augment an existing  hospital’s neurologic coverage for 24/7/365 coverage or, for other extremely rural hospitals, it might become the only neurologic expertise consistently available due to their remote location. In its current iteration, telestroke services assume that a patient is physically at a healthcare facility, but we can envision M2M services that would make remote, perhaps even automated, diagnostics available to patients wherever they may be. For at-risk patients, such a solution could make a lot of sense and it could be programmed to send an automated alert to medical staff should certain physiological traits be detected, similar to M2M-based glucose monitors today. The idea is to ensure that patients don’t lose precious time between onset of a stroke and the administration of life-saving tPA (anti-blood clotting) or other critical therapy.

At all events, we are excited to see early-stage stroke treatment emerge as a key new category in telemedicine growth.

By Peter West, Business Development

With over 12 years of experience in the wireless industry specializing in wireless data applications and solutions, Pete  joined KORE 3.5 years ago.  Pete's main focus at KORE is in Electronic Transactions and MRM applications and he spends his days helping companies launch their application using KORE network services.   His expertise in the MRM industry stems from his time at Gearworks (now owned by Xora) where he helped launch Verizon's field force manager mobile MRM application to help them enter the world of GPS.

More support in our quest for a “balanced view” toward the connected future

Kudos are in order today as we note this piece by Deepak Karambelkar at Gulfnews.com, which offers some temperance to the smart home discussion. We, of course, are fans of a tempered mindset when it comes to connected devices. We’ve been in this business too long to be otherwise.

Long and short, Mr. Karambelkar discusses how the Internet-of-Things markets itself as a means toward a whole new level of “fun” for at-home DIY-ers.

The mantra is simple — make the IoT appliance easy to customize and run, add a dash of adventure, keep the costs low, and bingo! — regular customers will soon smarten up their homes with these tiny devices.

What we like about his perspective, if we can read between the lines a bit, is a tacit acknowledgement that some of this stuff just may not take hold. Karambelkar adeptly sums up a similar point that Alex Brisbourne made in his Forbes article: “Without a strong value proposition, most of these IoT gadgets will end up as novelty items whose lustre will wear off soon.”

Deepak goes on to note the potential for unintended consequences that could arise by connecting too many things—personal things—to the Internet. “Security and privacy issues remain to be ironed out. IoT-enabled appliances that capture and analyze information can certainly help improve your life; but, in the wrong hands, that data can have unforeseen consequences.”

Security is indeed an issue that must be vetted more completely, but the M2M environment does hold a distinct advantage: it is already very closed. There is no direct extension of the Web going into these devices. Rather, they typically route data to and from specific network resources on a dedicated network, with quite complex challenges to getting into and out of those domains. There are architectural differences built into the M2M platform that transcend the level of how humans connect the Internet.

In addition, M2M device data streams are often subject to security processes that go far beyond simple end-point ingress protection – two examples are Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for remote payment processing, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) looking over utility applications such as Automated Metering and Demand Response. There is certainly room to consider expanding these security standards to all such connected devices.

It is of course gratifying to see like-minded opinions emerge from the blogsphere, and we are particularly amused by Deepak’s subtle style. He seems to question the absolute bankability of widespread consumer IoT applications without directly doing so; we applaud his technique as well as his ability to make us think.

By Stein Soelberg, Director of Marketing

Follow Stein on Twitter: @sesoelberg

Stein leads a team whose responsibility is to own the branding, advertising, customer engagement, loyalty, partnership and public relations initiatives designed to propel KORE into the 21^st century. With over 15 years of technology marketing experience in the business to business software, Internet services and telecommunications industries, Stein brings a proven track record of launching successful MVNOs and building those brands into leaders.

Our President and Chief Operating Officer Alex Brisbourne Takes on the Internet-of-Things at Forbes.com

We’ve been discussing on this blog various aspects of the Internet-of-Things for quite some time, but when this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) took the hype to new heights, our well-spoken President and COO, Alex Brisbourne, felt compelled to take the discussion to a wider circle. So he worked with the Editors at Forbes.com to put together a high level vision piece laying out his thoughts about where the Internet-of-Things came from and where it’s heading.

Please give it a read. Definitely brings some much needed focus to the discussion.

The Internet Of Things Isn't As New As It Seems

Read it at Forbes.com

By Stein Soelberg, Director of Marketing

Follow Stein on Twitter: @sesoelberg

Stein leads a team whose responsibility is to own the branding, advertising, customer engagement, loyalty, partnership and public relations initiatives designed to propel KORE into the 21^st century. With over 15 years of technology marketing experience in the business to business software, Internet services and telecommunications industries, Stein brings a proven track record of launching successful MVNOs and building those brands into leaders.