Next to being a Social Media Consultant I’m also a Belgian Girl Geek so the “Internet of Things” is really my cup of tea! A while ago I received an invitation from Mobistar to join an informal Round Table hosted by their passionate Machine-to-Machine Marketing Director Gert Pauwels. If you’re into M2M he’s your man so don’t hesitate to get in touch with him!
So M2M, what’s it about? Well, Machine-to-Machine communication enables objects and devices to exchange real-time information. As a Girl Geek I thought I had pretty much seen the possibilities, guess again 🙂 We mostly think of smartwatches or controlling household devices with our smartphone from a distance but I learned that it goes much much further!
You’re probably wondering why I’ve put a picture of a green cow in this blogpost? Well, even Bella the cow has M2M technology inside her belly! Though I’m not going to tell you where it’s hidden… Bella thinks that information is too private 🙂 When Bella is fertile her Farmer will receive a text message from Mobistar so he knows that Bella is looking for a Bull, and when she’s pregnant that same Farmer will receive another text message once she gets into labor. All possible thanks to M2M.
And we heard many nice examples during this Mobistar Round Table! Another example was related to Coyote, the speed radar alert system. They are also using M2M technology. While in the past they were only warning for speed cameras they are now using technology to alert their users that a lot of accidents happened in a specific area the past 2 weeks. By doing so they are supporting safety which is the key reason why they are supported by government.
I was really surprised how far it goes; you can’t imagine how many things contain a SIM-card! There are lawnmowers with a SIM-card that are mowing golf courts, in hotels there are coffee machines controlled by SIM-cards so that hoteliers know when they need to add new Nespresso Pads, …. Mobistar currently has 5 million SIM-cards, and of those 5 million SIM-cards 1 million are placed in Machines, so 1 out of 5 Mobistar SIM-cards is an M2M card! To compare with another operator, Proximus has about 300.000 M2M SIM-cards.
We asked Gert about the 5 segments that we need to keep an eye on related to M2M. These are Consumer Goods, Utilities, Smart City (which is a combination of intelligent houses and companies), Cars and Industry. Sometimes I wish that I could fastforward 20 years… but without aging of course!
Want to know more about M2M Solutions? Check-out the M2M applications that Mobistar offers!