OREANDA-NEWS. Swisscom has joined the Global M2M Association (GMA), a cooperation of seven international tier-one operators (Deutsche Telekom, Orange, TeliaSonera, Telecom Italia, Bell Canada, SoftBank, and most recently Swisscom) in the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) market . Established in 2011, the GMA enables its members to offer their customers business benefits such as a globally seamless customer experience and enhanced M2M roaming services. Furthermore, the GMA optimizes interoperability across borders through unified incident management processes, harmonized modules testing and certification procedures. The association assumes responsibility for the harmonization of markets and ensures compliance which enables quicker and improved integration into customer machines and devices.

Alexander Lautz, Senior Vice President M2M at Deutsche Telekom and one of the founding members of the GMA, states: "The GMA demonstrates our intention to work together more closely in the interest of our customers and the M2M ecosystem. With Swisscom, we are gaining one of the M2M pioneers whose vision for the market complements well that of the GMA." The addition of another tier one operator allows the GMA to further ensure that customers have the best footprint for a lean and effective interaction of global M2M services through integrated business processes and a single point of contact.

Gerhard Schedler, Head of M2M / IoT Center of Competence at Swisscom says: "The unified M2M connectivity management platform among GMA members allows improved and simplified processes. For instance, the status of connected products throughout the lifecycle – from production, testing, shipping and distribution to the end-user will be automatically adapted and easily manageable." The Multi-Domestic Service operated by GMA members in particular will open up new opportunities for large, globally operating M2M customers demanding high data volumes. These M2M devices will be equipped with an embedded SIM card that functions just like a local SIM card in the networks operated by the respective GMA members. This ensures that best network coverage is guaranteed, while reducing the complexity of the global connectivity management for customers.

About Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with around 151 million mobile customers, 30 million fixed-network lines and more than 17 million broadband lines (as of December 31, 2014). The Group provides fixed network, mobile communications, Internet and IPTV products and services for consumers and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in more than 50 countries and has approximately 228,000 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenues of EUR 62.7 billion in the 2014 financial year – more than 60 percent of it outside Germany.

About the Global M2M Association

Established in February 2011, the Global M2M Association (GMA) is based on a service cooperation agreement between Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, TeliaSonera, Bell Canada and SoftBank Mobile. This partnership of tier 1 operators with a leading LTE network is now extended to Swisscom. Its main focus is to deliver best-in-class, enhanced and seamless M2M services globally and to maximize the business benefits of customers. The GMA aspires to help businesses and organizations to increase the availability of enhanced M2M solutions and innovations, and make them easier to deploy and manage all around the world.

Through this partnership, the participating parties are committed to offer customers enhanced quality of service, M2M roaming services and interoperability across a global footprint, by bringing together their technical and innovation capabilities. This unified and cohesive approach will enable to improve the incident and troubleshooting procedures and harmonize module standards through joint testing and certification.

In February 2015, the GMA has introduced its Multi-Domestic Service platform. Jointly implemented by GMA operators, the Multi-Domestic Service is designed to help global enterprises capitalize on the growth of connected devices.

About Swisscom M2M Center of Competence

The Swisscom M2M Center of Competence interconnects devices, products and machines wirelessly, making them “intelligent”. The advantages: More efficient processes, optimized costs and great potential for new business and service models. Customers profit from many years of experience and a professional M2M ecosystem. The flexible Connectivity Management Platform (CMP) forms the centerpiece of this, and is complemented by the cloud-based Application Enablement Platform (AEP), used for centralized management of devices and data in the cloud. Swisscom develops solutions from A to Z for its customers to establish networks between entire car fleets, trains, bicycles as well as oil tankers or even coffee machines. This makes applications such as remote maintenance, predictive maintenance and mobile payment possible, just like track & trace.