Leading Asia Pacific Mobile Operators Form Region’s Largest ‘Machine-to-Machine’ Alliance

Eleven leading Asia Pacific mobile operators under Bridge Alliance, formed the region’s largest Machine-to-Machine (M2M) alliance, offering a ‘one-stop-shop’ experience for M2M deployment across the Asia Pacific region and effectively becoming a center of excellence for M2M services and solutions to attract partnerships and provide customers with an end-to-end M2M regional capability.

M2M technology functions by connecting communication hardware to a physical asset: anything from a delivery truck, service vehicle, motorcycle, boat, production machine, an ATM terminal, freezer, elevator, data center, vault and so on. Information about its present status and performance can be transmitted to a computer system and used to automate a business process or a consumer action. Data is extracted straight from a machine with limited or no human intervention. These elements benefit industries through faster operations, more accurate data gathering and improved efficiency in terms of manpower, time and costs. This service was first introduced in the Philippine market by Globe Telecom under its Enterprise Business Group in August 2011.

Aside from Globe Telecom (Philippines), the Bridge M2M Alliance comprises of Airtel (India), AIS (Thailand), CSL (Hong Kong), Maxis (Malaysia), MobiFone (Vietnam), Optus (Australia), SingTel (Singapore), SK Telecom (South Korea), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan) and Telkomsel (Indonesia). Together, the group serves a combined base of over 570 million subscribers, making it the largest M2M alliance in the Asia Pacific region.

Bridge M2M Alliance eliminates the complexity of dealing with multiple operators by offering seamless delivery of regional M2M services across geographical borders. The Alliance will also improve customers’ service experience through enhanced interoperability, service levels and customer support.

Alessandro Adriani, CEO of Bridge Alliance, noted that “Asia is made up of highly varied economies, uneven technological development and diversified regulatory requirements. As a result, multinational businesses find it extremely difficult to navigate the intricacies of the region and to fully capitalise on economies of scale. The evolution of Bridge Alliance in the M2M business is an indication of the commitment from the 11 operators to overcome these challenges for the success of customers’ businesses.”

Gil Genio, Globe Telecom Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Business and International Markets, pointed out that: “M2M is an important pillar of growth for us. Being part of this initiative gives us a strategic advantage in our local market, and our customers can look forward to comprehensive regional geographical coverage and superior service.”

The M2M partnership covers commercial as well as technological cooperation across various industries such as vehicle telemetry, security and energy management, among others. This enables the development of new business models, creation of new products and services as well as reduction in customers’ operational costs. The Alliance is determined to build an innovative ecosystem by partnering technology players in the M2M value chain such as application developers, module manufacturers and service providers.

Alliance members will continuously cooperate to secure significant commercial benefits and economies of scale for customers and to enable joint product development initiatives. Being key operators in the respective countries, they are well placed to leverage and support multinational companies hoping to ride on Asia’s growth, as well as Asian companies looking to expand globally.

Photo above: M2M technology functions by connecting communication hardware to a physical asset such as an ATM terminal where information about its present status and performance can be transmitted to a computer system and used to automate a business process or a consumer action, delivering a faster, more accurate and improved efficiency to customers. (Image credit: www.bankingandpaymentsasia.com)