The next wave

Perhaps the most-discussed industry associated with M2M technology is the utility sector, which plans to use such solutions extensively to develop a “smart grid” that is designed be more convenient for the consumer and greatly enhance the efficiencies for utilities.

Today, utilities already use low-bandwidth versions of M2M technology for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), which can reduce meter-reading costs, as well as the cost to establish connections with new customers. Tom Hoyne, director of utility markets for Harris, said he remembers a discussion with an official for one large utility regarding the value of AMI.

“He closed the door and said, ‘We’ve got 4.5 million meters here,’” Hoyne said. “‘We’ve got a lot of colleges and universities, and we connect and disconnect 1.5 million meters per year—and it costs $100 to roll a truck. Do the math. So, if it costs $400 million to put in AMI—at $150 million per year, it’s a pretty quick payoff.’”

By leveraging even more M2M technology, consumers can adjust the temperature in their homes or remotely control appliances such as refrigerators and stoves. This also can be useful for utilities. If given permission by customers, a utility could adjust the indoor temperature of buildings and homes in a given area during a peak load to ensure that a blackout or brownout does not occur.

In Plano, Texas, a similar system already exists to control sprinkler systems in the city, which tries to regulate water usage during the hot, dry weather that the area often encounters during the summer, according to Roy McClellan, Cassidian’s vice president and chief technologist for radio systems.

M2M technology also is expected to play a key role in ensuring the integrity and performance of utility grids, but the requirements for doing so are much more stringent, Hoyne said. If a meter is not read immediately because a cellular network is congested, that is not a big problem; however, key network indicators must work at all times and only can handle minute amounts of latency.

“When you get into the transmission system and the devices and reloads and stuff there, reliability is very critical and the coverage requirements are often spotty,” Hoyne said. “A lot of what they do is not even entrusted to wireless.”

Mass transportation is another sector that is expected to be impacted significantly by the M2M evolution. The U.S. rail industry already is facing a federal mandate to deploy low-bandwidth positive train control (PTC) systems—designed to prevent train collisions—that are expected to cost the industry billions of dollars and which are supposed to be completed by 2015.

Meeting this federal deadline is the first priority for many rail organizations, but the value of M2M communications is expected to extend beyond the PTC mandate, according to Jim Baker, founder and CEO of Xentrans.

“The whole point of M2M is to improve operational efficiency and reduce overhead,” Baker said. “So, although it may not be a direct revenue source, it is a cost-saving measure. What transportation needs to understand is those cost benefits. It’s a slow process; it’s not going to happen overnight, but it is my belief that M2M will increase operational efficiencies in transportation and those transit organizations need to account for that on their balance sheets.”

As with utilities, transportation entities have various communications needs that have different throughput and reliability requirements. Where coverage is available, commercial cellular connections can suffice for passenger connectivity and for non-critical applications—and it is the only option, in many cases. But private, dedicated networks would be preferred for critical system applications, Baker said.

“Anything that has to do with energy or any kind of remote machinery out in the field that needs to be constantly monitored, I think we’ll see those systems moving away from cellular and onto these license-free, long-distance communications networks, such as TV white space,” he said. “I think that TV white space absolutely will become something that is increasingly used for M2M.”

While PTC does not require a lot of bandwidth, transportation entities have significant closed-circuit television (CCTV) assets, and they need broadband connections to transmit the imagery captured by them in real time. Currently, this video typically is uploaded only when trains reach hotspots such as depots, but it would be helpful if it could be uploaded in real time during emergencies, Baker said.

“What we’re seeing now is this move to use DVRs to record video the whole time, but in the event of an emergency, some sort of activation—for example, the driver may hit the panic button, or a conductor [may push] a button on a lanyard around his neck—would immediately prompt the system to open a channel and send a message back to the NOC, so it can instigate a VPN connection directly into the DVR,” he said.