Creating a Frictionless Environment for M2M Service Enablement A WHITEPAPER ON M2M FOR AT&T SEPTEMBER 2012 BY JAMES BREHM SENIOR STRATEGIST COMPASS INTELLIGENCE
CONTENTS Introduction & Overview 2 Background & Definitions 3-4 M2M Growth 4-5 Moving Forward 5-6 How AT&T Can Help 7-10 Overview: It s been said that we ve entered an era where every device that can benefit from being connected will be connected to the Internet and/or other devices; and that this hyperconnectivity will propel society into new ways of interacting with the world around us. But to get to this world of hyper-connected nirvana, it is about much more than just the devices. In a recent series of television commercials centered on the Smarter Planet initiative, IBM is quoted as saying soon there will be 1 trillion connected devices This implies a future where a trillion connected devices used from a trillion locations can and will connect a trillion services and applications. Fundamentally, that notion requires four important things, quality hardware, good software, ubiquitous network connectivity, and a partner who has an end-to-end holistic view of the challenges and solutions that exist. While M2M applications such as telemetry and telematics have been around in niche vertical markets for several years, the availability of lowcost intelligent endpoints, pervasive wireless access, and advances in cloud computing are accelerating the velocity of adoption for new and innovative business models. But what are the steps necessary for an enterprise to create an M2M solution? How do they select a partner? Who does a company lean on for support and advice? How does an organization with little telecom skills begin the process of creating new visionary applications that take advantage of network elements such as location and presence? Partner selection is critical in implementing a successful M2M solution. Enterprises have an interesting array of potential M2M partners including mobile network operators, MVNOs, systems integrators, VARs (valueadded resellers), software solution developers, and even the mobile device manufacturers. Compass Intelligence has identified AT&T as a leader in the M2M space through selection of its A-list in M2M award based on criteria including its vision, strategy, leadership, key customers, partnerships, financial metrics and other qualitative factors. In a still very fragmented market, AT&T has the ability to function as a single source for high value M2M services reducing the friction for its clientele normally associated with M2M deployments. This whitepaper will explore the obstacles most organizations face when being challenged to come up with an M2M solution, discuss possible solutions, and showcase how AT&T is helping its customers over the hurdles. 2
Background & Definitions: What Is M2M? Source: Compass Intelligence M2M communications (often called by other names such as the Internet of Things, IoT, Smarter Planet, etc.) consists of using endpoints (devices such as a sensors, meters, etc.) to capture information (location, pressure, temperature, environmental status, etc.), and relay that data through a network to an application (software program) for the purpose of collecting, analyzing and/or taking action upon the data. This definition can be applied to both one-way and bidirectional communication scenarios where a device can be remotely monitored, information can be collected and analyzed, and the device itself can perform certain functions based on commands from the enterprise or the service provider backend. What kinds of systems make sense to connect? Examples include utility meters, thermostats, building controls, sprinkler systems, vending machines, rapid transit systems, trucks, trains, shipping containers, appliances, automobiles, roads (traffic lights, etc.), game stations, stereos, cameras, healthcare monitoring solutions, home security systems, home automation and energy management solutions, distance learning, telemedicine, health and wellness, gaming devices, televisions and home entertainment systems all collecting data, communicating the data, making intelligent decisions on their own or interacting with you and me so we can make better decisions, be more efficient, improve the quality of life, make more money, and/or benefit society as a whole. Regardless of the M2M application, certain concepts remain constant; enabling real-time data communication between remote machines (endpoints) and central management applications to increase the value of the endpoint to its user. And successful M2M / connected device strategies can involve making a multitude of disparate, geographically dispersed devices communicate. But that is just the beginning. This new data must be aggregated, often fed into multiple legacy backend systems, 3
analyzed, stored, and oftentimes acted upon. The data oftentimes is exported as complex time-series data and then must be transformed into meaningful information in order to optimize business processes. M2M Growth No matter what you call it; M2M, a Smarter Planet, the connected world, or the Internet of things (IoT), the world is evolving at a frenetic pace. Forecasts by vendors range from the tens of billions, to one trillion connected devices. In the last century, Metcalf supposed that the value of the network was directly proportional to the square of the number of connected endpoints (or users). And in his book on changing economics of web commerce, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson illustrates how the Internet is changing the laws of distribution. Wireless networks are, too, growing a long tail, as billions, maybe even, trillions, of devices are being connected to an increasing pervasive and integrated array of wireless networks powering the mobility generation. Due to a number of interrelated factors; intelligent endpoints, the ubiquitousness of mobile broadband wireless, and the rise of cloud computing, organizations globally have become more interconnected and acutely more intelligent, creating a new interdependent web of hyperconnectivity. As illustrated in figure 1, Compass Intelligence s own research and analysis in this market indicates that individual consumers and organizations of all sizes, across almost all industry vertical sectors, and in all regions around the world, are interested in the benefits that this hyperconnectedness will provide. Figure 1: Total M2M and Connected Devices in the U.S., 2010-2015 (In Millions) Source: Compass Intelligence, 2012 4
How Does all this Happen? This is where it begins to get confusing. Enterprises ask themselves questions like: Where do I begin? Who do I contact? This is just a hardware problem, right? Now where do I get the hardware? But wait, how am I going to connect all the things (sensors/endpoints) together? How do I collect the data? How do I store the data? Do I need to set up a data center? Can I do this in the cloud? Whose cloud? Amazon, Rackspace, Google? Should I just hire a team to build something inhouse? Where to Start? A successful M2M / Connected Product strategy involves a myriad of challenges and important decisions for an enterprise. The M2M value chain is highly fragmented and complex and it takes the integration of different products from several suppliers in order to build a new M2M solution. This makes an M2M implementation time consuming, costly and complex, requiring a deep M2M knowhow. While the selection of connectivity partners, pricing plans, and hardware seem like the important things to look at for an enterprise, a whole alphabet soup of acronyms of challenges exist, including activation, billing, certification, device management, engineering, form factor, geography, and many others. So how do you get started? Market or Revenue Growth Cost Reduction Source: Compass Intelligence While historically, enterprises have deployed M2M solutions for one of two reasons efficiency gains or cost savings, forward thinking companies are now looking to deploy M2M to extend services, enable new business models, or create new revenue streams. Think of how insurance companies like Progressive are taking the concepts of the connected automobile and location-based services to consumers, offering new business models for insurance. Or think about vending machine operators who 5
have used M2M to provide telemetry services to ensure the machine is operational, that are now adding advertising to their vending machines. But how do you do something like this? Define Objectives Build Business Case Gather Requirements Research/ Refine Options Situation Assessment Partner/ Vendor Evaluation Selection The first step for an enterprise is to define objectives. What is the problem that needs to be addressed and is M2M a viable solution? Next, while it might be tempting to dive headfirst into M2M app development, it s important for an organization to carefully think through the strategy and plan appropriately. Building a case for M2M isn t easy: It requires a lot of time, research, and even some (or enormous) amount of convincing. When developing the business case, an enterprise must be sure to consider primary business objectives, what needs to be connected, how data will be collected, hardware / infrastructure requirements, maintenance requirements, support, training, team, capabilities, etc. The next phase is the Gather phase. This phase will require IT managers and decision makers (as well as influencers) to compile a list of general needs and requirements, even if they are not stating a specific technology or telecom solution. It may be necessary to depend on the vendors selected to decide the best solution. Many will first seek out information on the web and through word of mouth to learn about vendors, products/services, and to perform background research. It may also be useful to call a select number of telecom or technology partners to engage with M2M specialists who can help. Additionally, you can also select a handful of vendors and request that they perform an assessment of your situation and make recommendations based on your needs and plans to grow. The initial assessments may guide you to vendors that are really knowledgeable about M2M, as some vendors are very good with technology but not in tune with what is needed in specific vertical markets. The next phase is to evaluate the various partners. This will be painstaking. In some cases, you may find a provider that will give you one stop shopping and meet all or most of your needs. This is ideal but not always necessary, as some vendors may specialize in specific components of your IT, telecom, and infrastructure needs. During the evaluation phase, special attention should also be paid to vendors that can recommend specific partners and act as an integration lead (or lead vendor). Some vendors have made a niche in offering these solutions, but care must be taken to ensure that reference checks are made to corroborate their network and data security performance. The last phase is the selection phase. As you narrow down your list of key telecom/technology partners, keep in mind the stability of each of the companies, their portfolio of services, their level of customer services and support, and also their expected commitment to your company or industry. Not all telecom providers will specialize in M2M solutions, but finding a telecom partner that is focused on your industry and understands the key aspects of your market will be imperative to meet your ongoing telecom needs. 6
How AT&T Can Help? Over the past decade, AT&T has developed a set of solution capabilities to serve the needs of M2M customers. By combining the AT&T global network, service delivery and application platforms, with networking expertise, industry alliances and professional services capabilities, AT&T has and will continue to deliver best of breed M2M solutions that fit their customers' needs across a wide range of industries. AT&T Emerging Enterprise and Partnership Organization The Emerging Enterprise and Partnership Organization (EEPO) was created as an entry point for nontraditional companies who may have not had experience in the wireless sector to interact with AT&T to develop and go to market with business-to-consumer (B2C) M2M solutions. Designed to meet the technical and business needs of these organizations, the EEPO team can assist by helping with hardware, network, business case, and go-to-market strategies in a more streamlined and nimble process than any of its competitors offer. With its own unique portal, the EEPO microsite can walk a customer through the end-to-end M2M business launch process from creating a business plan all the way through to market launch. Users can define usage and determine specifications for their product, find a pre-certified module to their specific device using an integrated module matching tool, order developer kits, access developer tools, and much more. AT&T Advanced Mobility Solutions Organization For AT&T to act as a trusted advisor for M2M, they have found the need to look beyond the network, embrace an end-to-end view of the problem that the customer is trying to solve, and develop ecosystems that engage vendors, including component manufacturers, network equipment providers, IT infrastructure vendors, BSS/OSS solutions, storage, and application platforms. Because M2M solutions are complex, AT&T has put together a team that specializes in assisting customers to pull together the right partners from the AT&T ecosystem to realize new and disruptive solutions and work with the various internal AT&T teams involving in bringing customer solutions to fruition. Having a dedicated experienced M2M team eliminates many of the challenges that can arise in M2M deployments. AT&T s team provides support, advice and expertise throughout the customer lifecycle with a direct closed-loop feedback process which reduces the customer s burden of having to navigate the right channel for sales, marketing, support, and product development issues. The team can provide all of the necessary resources to manage all the elements of the M2M process, from consultancy through design, support, and deployment. AT&T Control Center, Powered by Jasper Wireless Deploying and managing M2M devices and services have unique requirements and depend on a high degree of automation and integration with customer business processes. Standard Telco OSS/BSS platforms for mobile phones are not well suited to provisioning and managing M2M services and billing. Over the past decade, AT&T developed a custom provisioning & billing system for M2M solutions, but also recognized the advanced capabilities of the Jasper Wireless platform. Together, AT&T and Jasper created AT&T Control Center, a unique service management platform for M2M solutions. AT&T Control Center integrates the Jasper Wireless platform with its key B/OSS processes to support and accelerate the deployment of connected devices on AT&T s network. This system provides automated 7
operational management capabilities, including custom device provisioning, instant activation, realtime diagnostic tools and detailed billing and usage reports and analytics managed through an online portal or directly through an API exclusively for M2M and consumer electronics customers. Because of the differences in M2M business models, AT&T Control Center provides the much needed flexibility to serve all customers whether B2B, B2B2B, or B2B2C equally. AT&T Control Center allows a business the flexibility of self-service management and control of service to a single device or thousands of devices directly from the secure online portal. M2M Application Platform Powered by Axeda Building applications fast, and getting to market quickly, is the name of the game for many of today s M2M customers. Scalability, security, and affordability are also keys to success. And in addition to these attributes, M2M developers and enterprises alike are looking for ways to build applications that drive business transformational processes leveraging the data being generated by their M2M endpoints. This is where the power of the cloud becomes important as service development with the cloud accommodates faster deployment of services at a lower cost, and with a shorter time to market. A cloud platform based application is also faster and easier to adapt and maintain. In order to take advantage of these things, AT&T formed an alliance with cloud based platform company Axeda so customers can develop and deploy M2M applications in a highly scalable and highly secure environment with a built in framework that integrates M2M data with existing backend BPM, ERP, and CRM business systems. With this offering, AT&T M2M customers can focus on building a business solution that adds business value and provides contextually relevant actionable information and not on the enabling technologies required to create such a solution. This gives them the ability to develop, test, and deploy new solutions in a fraction of the time previously required with minimal infrastructure costs. AT&T Global Network Today s enterprise customers are more demanding than ever. And with the global enterprise commonplace in today s society, a successful M2M strategy can involve deployments that must be available even travel globally. But do global deployments mean different requirements? Enterprises, M2M Integrators, resellers, and MVNOs all have something in common their global deployment needs are the same. Most importantly, they require ubiquitous wireless coverage in the markets in which they deploy. For this reason, AT&T designed and built its network on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard. GSM is the most popular and pervasive wireless phone technology globally, available in over 280 countries and used by more than 3.6 billion people worldwide. By using the most widely available technology, AT&T customers benefit from a wider range and lower cost of solutions and devices, global compatibility with more international roaming options, and a smoother network migration path and easier integration with new and emerging technologies from legacy GPRS/EDGE to HSPA/HSPA+ to LTE. Additionally, AT&T facilitates global deployments with easy to understand billing, a single carrier/single SIM solution, and a global service management platform. With global roaming agreements and hundreds of carrier relationships cultivated over years, AT&T s M2M single SIM solution bundled with the AT&T Control Center service management platform, device manufacturers and integrators have the ability to provide M2M service in about 200 countries worldwide. 8
Module Selection and Device Certification New entrants to wireless device design and manufacturing face the challenge of technical certification before gaining access to AT&T s wireless network. Two priorities of AT&T include ensuring a favorable customer experience for new customers while maintaining network integrity and network quality of service for existing customers. With that in mind, AT&T created its Network Ready Certification process to streamline the device certification process. Using pre-certified modules and AT&T connectivity software, makes the process quick and easy as possible. AT&T lists a growing selection of pre-certified modules on developer.att.com, suitable for new M2M devices. These include hardware configurations from a variety of third party manufacturers that have been designed to perform optimally on AT&T s network, giving new devices a great start and streamlined process for receiving PTCRB, and AT&T approvals. While not every application or vertical market requires a specific module design, preapproved modules optimized for specific applications are available. Many automotive OEM, aftermarket, fleet management, logistics, and asset tracking modules are hardened and designed with GPS or A-GPS capabilities integrated with their core radio features making it easy to include location based services for off-the-shelf configurations. Many metering and remote monitoring modules are designed to withstand extreme temperatures. While certain other modules are designed with embedded Windows or built-in Java platforms for onboard application development. In order to streamline the process and make it quick and easy to onboard new customers and services easily, AT&T instituted a certification process complete with dedicated Connected Device testing facility within AT&T Labs. AT&T created the facility to streamline the process and focus solely on connected devices, not cell phones. The engineering staff understands the unique needs of M2M devices and can provide guidance around some common obstacles that cause delays for first-time device and/or module certification, helping you move through the complex and confusing list of needed certifications. For module and vendors, AT&T s team can provide guidance on how to best navigate the FCC and PTCRB certification requirements for accessing AT&T s wireless network. By working with AT&T closely, companies will streamline the device development and certification process while passing the required certifications much more quickly, and at a lower cost. Other Tools In addition to some of the solutions discussed above, AT&T has a wealth of tools available for its customer base. While businesses see M2M solutions as tool sets that can help increase efficiency and productivity, AT&T sees M2M differently. AT&T views M2M as a crucial component necessary for enterprises to generate new revenue streams, gain a competitive advantage, reduce OPEX, or fulfill a compliance mandate. AT&T offers a holistic approach to mobility with solutions that range from resale to fully managed, turnkey offerings in the following areas: M2M, mobile device management, mobile app platforms, bring your own device (BYOD) solutions, and mobile security services and solutions. With a history of offering M2M products and services for well more than a decade, AT&T has assembled an impressive M2M alliance network compromised of leading M2M players to help overcome complexity, reduce time to market, improve efficiencies and leverage the full potential of the M2M market. This extensive best-of-breed (bob) partner list allows AT&T customers to take a modular 9
approach to creating an M2M solution. By having a policy of collaboration with its alliance ecosystem, customers have more choice, a greater degree of innovation, and improved peace of mind. Choosing the Right M2M Partner The M2M market, while steadily growing and evolving is poised for a major transformation as more robust networks are rolled out, hardware becomes more intelligent and the use of the cloud expands. With this comes the need to be extremely selective when choosing a primary M2M partner. A substantial consideration for any organization looking at M2M is that the M2M partner be as interested in a company s business processes as their communication needs. Working with trusted partners who understand the complex dynamics of the M2M ecosystem, and can support this transformation with robust and secure solutions, will enable enterprises to reduce overall costs, improve efficiencies, meet the needs of multiple constituencies, and ultimately transform what was once lost bits of disparate information into actionable and meaningful intelligence used to optimize business processes. It is important to seek out communications partners that offer the following key attributes, which address the level of expertise, capabilities, and quality of service: Seek a partner with an understanding of your industry. Make sure the partner is aligned vertically with subject matter experts across a wide variety of industries and vertical markets so they have an understanding of unique requirements from competition all the way to compliance. Seek a partner with global experience and capabilities. Look for a carrier that has processes and solutions in place to streamline the end-to-end solution development. If you are a company selecting a simple M2M application, look for solutions that allow true customization of features. Tools with mash-ups that include social data are very powerful and can add tremendous value. But if you are looking for an application development platform to build from, remember that the development framework matters. Look for platforms that embrace customizability to minimize integration costs when meshing with your existing technical infrastructure and business processes. Your needs will change over time, and so will the solutions required. Seek a balance of flexibility and adaptability. Selecting a scalable, modular approach is essential to reducing long term costs. Find a partner who embraces the cloud, yet understands security. Keeping your data safe in the new cloud enabled world is important from both a compliance and competitive perspective. Select a partner who embraces open standards and is part of the standards body or standards development process. Open collaboration with customers and partners is crucial in reducing the friction of M2M solution development and provides more choice, a higher degree of innovation, and ultimately more peace of mind for customers. By integrating all of the layers of an M2M solution stack into one offering, AT&T has taken significant cost, risk and time out of the process of deploying an M2M solution. 1 Simeon Simeonov (July 26, 2006). "Metcalfe s Law: more misunderstood than wrong?" High Contrast: Innovation & venture capital in the post-broadband era. 2 Chris Anderson "The Long Tail" Wired, October 2004 10