M2M technologies

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Ashish Gulati writes about the likely impact of these technologies on the Indian economy

Imagine if there was a way to let cars talk to the nearest parking lot to find out empty slots and help guide the way to find a parking slot. If your umbrella had the power to inform you about the weather forecast so that you go out prepared. Or your refrigerator orders pizza and coke cans.

What may seem like science fiction is fast becoming reality with concepts like Internet-of-Things (IOT) fast emerging as the next wave of technology to hit our world. IOT, which is essentially a concept powered by Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technologies and concepts is basically an integration of sensors and sophisticated electronics that help machines (that we use on a daily basis) to communicate with each other wirelessly.

With the advent of M2M technologies, the challenge of gathering relevant information from our surroundings and putting it to use is fast emerging as a global trend today. While for a normal person it makes life more comfortable, for businesses, it opens up innumerable vistas for creating new services and products.

It also opens up huge market opportunity for telcos across the world as these M2M technologies rely mostly on the existing wireless networks for communication.

India, which is witnessing a telecom revolution, is uniquely positioned to reap the benefits of M2M technologies. Even though telecom companies are expanding fervently in India rolling out 3G networks, there is immense revenue pressures from voice-based services as the call rates are amongst the lowest in the world. The emerging M2M market in India represents a huge potential for telecom service providers as they can start offering a host of data-based services to their customers.

Having said this, there are a number of M2M applications that will find relevance and acceptance in the Indian market. These applications have the potential to have long term impact not only in the form of economic gains but also have the potential to mitigate environmental concerns to some extent. Let us look at some of the applications that could have a long term impact upon the Indian market.

India is on a fast track to achieve energy security for itself and the government has made significant plans in this regard by planning billions of dollars worth of investment into the power sector in India. One of the major concerns that the government is trying to address is the issue of transmission and distribution (T&D) and commercial losses in the power sector. Today almost 40% of the power that is generated in India is lost due to these losses, resulting in wastage of a valuable resource such as power. This corresponding carbon footprint does not justify the consumption of power creating a disparity in the equilibrium.

A majority of the T&D losses can be attributed to the inability of the utilities to put a check on pilferage and theft of electricity, which is rampant. This is mostly due to the use of archival power monitoring systems, which are based on outdated technologies. For instance, the conventional electromechanical meters used for both household and commercial consumers introduce a high degree of risk of power pilferage and theft into the system due to many reasons.

In such a scenario smart metering concepts like introduction of wireless AMRs based on M2M technologies can alleviate such issues to a great extent. Wireless M2M AMRs utilize existing GSM/ Cellular networks to communicate automatically with the command center of the utilities. For electric utilities, the ability to access real-time data from remote assets is changing the way that they operate their business. As these utilities move toward a more centralized operational control model, data communication starts to play a more pivotal role in the overall operation of their electric distribution systems.

Besides this, India is also making a major push towards enabling financial inclusion for the masses. It is a gargantuan effort in a huge and diverse country such as India. Given the fact that financial infrastructure cannot be practically built to reach out to far flung areas, micro-finance and rural banking institutions are increasingly turning to rely on wireless M2M enabled technologies to make it a reality. One of the major issues with traditional micro-financing models was the reconciliation of accounts on a real time basis along with huge administrative costs due to a great deal of manual intervention. This aspect defeated the purpose of micro-finance as the cost was being passed on to the end-user, which resulted in a lot of negative publicity on the sector due to suicides by borrowers in some states. Some technology savvy micro finance institutions turned to handheld wireless point of sale (POS) devices in order to bring down administrative costs and use it for immediate reconciliation of accounts at the central server of the banks, making the business more feasible. These handheld POS terminals were enabled by M2M modules and used the existing GSM/CDMA networks to communicate with the central server wirelessly and securely.

Other than this M2M also has many applications in the area of agriculture. One of the key applications is to manage irrigation water resources more efficiently and cost effectively to bring down costs and reduce wastage. Using an array of sensor that detect the humidity levels in the atmosphere and the soil, M2M modules can be used to control the dispersal of water to the required level, instead of following a traditional routine of irrigating fields, which is wasteful.

Similarly, logistics operators can cut down fuel costs and prevent unnecessary wear and tear of vehicles by fitting M2M devices inside the vehicles, which will wirelessly provide information to fleet management systems at the operations office. This will make fleet operators more competitive and reduce their carbon footprint due to efficient management of routes and better maintenance.

While these are some significant examples how M2M technologies will benefit the Indian market, there are many more possibilities which will emerge in the time to come.

The author is Country Manager, Telit India

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