In 
By Debashis Sarkar
As voice usage may be plateauing, the two key growth areas in the telecom industry are data and M2M (machine-to-machine) communication. Operators are increasingly looking at M2M to generate future growth. “Growth in voice might get stagnant in the future but data and M2M will surely help the industry grow,” says Arvind Bali, Director & CEO, Videocon Telecom.
According to Rajeev Batra, CIO, MTS, M2M looks promising. Though the adoption rate might be low now, going forward M2M will proliferate. This was another reason why there was a shift from IPv4 to IPv 6 -- to aid M2M communication.
“Vodafone is already the leader in this space. For us, the next level is to focus more on the rural population. For example, using M2M to deliver crop quality monitoring for a farmers, tracking water trucks and more. InIndia, the rural M2M use cases are the ones that will make a huge difference,” aver Anthony Thomas, CIO, Vodafone.
Application of M2M
Connected Car
‘Connected Car’ technologies are at the frontier of innovation and the confluence of automotive, infotainment and communications technologies. In a strategic technology partnership between Mahindra Reva and Vodafone, Vodafone provides Machine-to- Machine (m2m) communication services to power the electric vehicle, Mahindra e2o. Using their smart phones or any internet connected computer, e2o owners can, with Vodafone’s connectivity, access a host of services like the state of charge in the battery of their car and how far they can travel with the available charge; remotely control its air-conditioning and set schedules to pre-heat or pre-cool the car before they use it; lock or unlock the car doors and also find the nearest charging stations.
Power distribution
M2M solutions have helped power utilities accelerate their modernisation. CESC generates and distributes electricity to the twin cities of Kolkata andHowrah. In 2009, CESC decided to reduce manual processes and introduce increasing levels of automation. Vodafone delivered the capability for CESC to bring a smart metering solution to the market. Using Machine to Machine (M2M) connectivity, customer meters transmit power consumption data to CESC over Vodafone’s GPRS network. In addition, Vodafone has installed SIMs in Distribution Transformer (DT) meters which help CESC to monitor and resolve power supply problems caused by overloading on the network. Vodafone has enabled CESC to install 16,000 meters to DT, industrial and commercial customer base and has helped to achieve a meter reading accuracy rate of 99.27 percent.
Quality Monitoring
Advanced technologies have the ability to positively impact fortunes of ruralIndia. One such example is that of a leading dairy based inKanpur. It has leveraged Vodafone's M2M-based location tracking technology for tracking the milk distributing & procuring vans. This has helped them provide dynamic routing to the vans thus optimizing fuel costs and delivery time as well as reducing milk wastage.
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