M2M Communications: A Systems Approach

Chapter 1

Introduction to M2M

Emmanuel Darmois and Omar Elloumi

Alcatel-Lucent, Velizy, France

M2M (Machine-to-Machine) has come of age. It has been almost a decade since the idea of expanding the scope of entities connected to “the network” (wireless, wireline; private, public) beyond mere humans and their preferred communication gadgets has emerged around the notions of the “Internet of Things” (IoT), the “Internet of Objects” or M2M. The initial vision was that of a myriad of new devices, largely unnoticed by humans, working together to expand the footprint of end-user services. This will create new ways to care for safety or comfort, optimizing a variety of goods-delivery mechanisms, enabling efficient tracking of people or vehicles, and at the same time creating new systems and generating new value.

As with every vision, it has taken time to materialize. Early efforts concentrated on refining the initial vision by testing new business models, developing point solutions to test feasibility, and also forecasting the impact of insufficient interoperability. Over the past few years, the realization that there are new viable sources of demand that can be met and monetized has created the push for a joint effort by industry to turn a patchwork of standalone elements and solutions into a coherent “system of systems”, gradually turning the focus from the “what” to the “how” and developing the appropriate technologies and standards.

This chapter introduces the M2M concept and proposes ...