The GSMA has published a set of guidelines for tackling the Internet of Things (IoT) market.
The report has received the backing of mobile operators including, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, KT, NTT DoCoMo, Tata Teleservices, Deutsche Telekom, AT&T Etisalat, Orange, Telefónica, Telenor Connexion and VimpelCom as well as ecosystem partners including Sierra Wireless and Jasper.
The guidelines include a number of best practice areas such as data aggregation within devices, non-synchronous network access, application scalability and guidance on how to manage signaling traffic from de-activated or out-of-subscription SIMs.
They are intended for use by all players in the mobile ecosystem, ensuring that mobile networks can efficiently accommodate the increased number of connected devices and services resulting from the rapid growth of M2M.
“It is imperative that the IoT market develops with the right standards and best practices in place, reducing undue pressure on mobile networks across the world and allowing the Internet of Things to grow unimpeded,” said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA.
“The GSMA has worked closely with its operator members to develop connection efficiency guidelines that ensure that IoT device and application makers can follow a common approach to create efficient, reliable services that can scale as the market grows and we encourage all parties to adopt these moving forward.”
According to GSMA Intelligence, the total number of mobile connections is expected to reach 7.4 billion in 2014 rising to 10 billion by 2020.
The organization said it is also undertaking a project to develop a common set of acceptance tests for IoT devices and applications to ensure best practices are being followed. This will establish a single, standard set of connection efficiency tests for IoT devices and applications, enabling players across the industry to develop and deploy IoT services with confidence.