What is M2M: Machine-to-Machine Connectivity?

Eseye

IoT Hardware and Connectivity Specialists

LinkedIn

What is M2M?

Machines have been able to communicate with each other for well over 100 years, but the first conceptualization of a machine-to-machine device that combined telephony and computing is often associated with inventor Theodore Paraskevakos who was working on his Caller ID system in 1968.

Paraskevakos’s development of caller ID, patented in the US in 1973, communicated telephone numbers between two machines where they were associated with a corresponding label. His related experiments led to the conceptualization of intelligence, data processing and visual display screens on telephone devices – all of which we still enjoy today after many years of evolution.

So, in this respect, wired communication machines were able to adopt signaling techniques to exchange information in the 60s.

M2M evolved further in the 20^th century with advances in applications such as telemetry, industrial automation, and SCADA systems.

In terms of wireless M2M, although the adoption of analog and then digital cellular communications was primarily driven by consumer applications for telephony and messaging, the future potential for M2M gathered enough momentum within the ecosystem to cause the specification body GSMA to act.

At its inception, cellular M2M was widely considered an enterprise technology, and in many ways it still is. A key lobbyist for its creation was the automotive industry, which led the early development of embedded SIMs. Auto manufacturers saw the potential for connected cars, and wanted to be able to provision and manage a large volume of SIMs at once – something the consumer-focused GSM specification didn’t really support.

The GSMA acknowledged this shortcoming and the original M2M specification was released in 2014. Shortly after, in 2016 when the GSMA released its first attempt at a global specification for eSIM, including capabilities for RSP OTA with SGP.01/02, it specifically addressed more requirements for M2M devices.

The standard was then updated again in 2020 with SGP.21/22, which addressed the same capabilities for consumer devices.

In light of its supporters, the very earliest specification was more suited to large car manufacturers and did not have to give much consideration to low-power devices without access to a sizable battery, or smaller businesses that lacked the resources or capital to invest in the expensive eUICC subscription management platform that enabled SIM profile swaps.

But there were other voices. oneM2M, the global standards initiative for M2M formed in 2012, hosted its first showcase event on the global potential for M2M in late 2014. OneM2M was inaugurated by several regional standards bodies, including ETSI in Europe and TIA in the US, as well as a number of industry lobby groups like the Open Mobile Alliance.

At the time, Fran O’Brien, Steering Committee Chair for oneM2M, said that the rapid development and growth of M2M “requires a set of specifications that are going to work at the service layer to stitch M2M protocols and solutions together as one.”

It was this set of specifications, providing a common means for communications service providers to support applications and services that helped to contribute towards M2M standards being harmonized.  

What is the difference between M2M and IoT?

As the name suggests, M2M is focused specifically on machine to machine communications and is a process not exposed to consumers. Another way of putting it is automatic, point-to-point communication between devices, machines, or systems without the need for human intervention.

M2M is mainly concerned with ‘the back end’ of connected systems and can refer to both wired and wireless connectivity. The goal of this (mostly) hardware-based technology is to automate the collection and distribution of information.

Where wireless M2M became important was with the release of SGP.01, when the GSMA realized many machine to machine devices would not be easily reachable for the purpose of provisioning a subscription.

As a result, SGP.01 sought to provide a solution by defining a mechanism for over the air (OTA) remote provisioning of machine to machine devices with the necessary credentials to gain mobile network access.

But this M2M mechanism was less well suited to enterprises with smaller fleets of low power devices, including NB-IoT and LTE-M units. It was only when efforts were made to bring services, devices, protocols, and solutions together in one ecosystem that M2M became as accessible for smaller initiatives as for large ones, and at the same moment became a subset of the Internet of Things.

IoT refers to the entire interconnected ecosystem of connected ‘things’, incorporating both hardware and software as well as services and connectivity, and applications also have consumer and business interfaces.

IoT connectivity can be both wired and wireless, and despite the name, access over the public internet is not a given, although it is typical in consumer facing IoT applications.

Where M2M is based on point-to-point connectivity, it is common for IoT deployments to incorporate the cloud as a form of centralized intelligence, with ubiquitous computing, commodity sensors, and increasingly powerful embedded systems leading to a much broader range of applications and things that can be connected. This can be anything from a toothbrush, a washing machine, or a thermostat to a car, a digital billboard, or a drone.

This extension of IoT into almost all vertical sectors has also led to the rise of ‘smart’ segments, from agriculture, to energy, to cities and more, where the combination of sensors, connectivity, and intelligence combine to make life or business more efficient and accessible.

How does cellular M2M work?

Although the concept of an eSIM for M2M via eUICC was first introduced almost a decade ago, poor operator cooperation stalled the much anticipated explosion in cellular M2M deployments due to a lack of ease in switching connectivity providers.

But the GSMA most recently updated the component of the standard dealing with remote SIM provisioning for M2M, with SGP.31/32 in mid-2023.

The updated SGP.31/32 standard removes the requirement for complex integrations and addresses the needs of constrained devices, removing the reliance on SMS and introducing provisions for a backend server known as an eSIM IoT Manager or eIM, to act as a proxy for managing eSIM deployments centrally and pushing profiles to individual or multiple devices.

Although SGP.31/32 deployments aren’t expected to hit the mainstream until 2025, existing solutions such as the Infinity IoT connectivity management platform from Eseye deliver M2M connectivity directly into devices today and provide a future-proof migration path to SGP.31/32.

M2M use cases

Given its machine to machine nature, M2M use cases largely revolve around industrial automation, telemetry, and remote monitoring.

Smart car telemetry

M2M is used to relay important information about your car and its performance, sending a steady stream of data to the manufacturer. In some cases the car may also communicate with smart city networks to help with traffic flow. In an enterprise setting M2M can be used for fleet management.

Logistics and supply chain management

Modern supply chains can be very complex. M2M can help track raw materials, stock and finished goods through the manufacturing/retail process. In-car telemetry can extend this tracking to distribution and even status monitoring for temperature critical goods.

M2M can help track shipping containers across geographical regions, and also help keep track of empty container storage.

Security and safety

M2M can be used to monitor various security and safety systems such as window and door sensors for intrusion detection or access control. It can also be used to check the status of fire alarm systems and send alerts if fire is detected.

Smart monitoring in buildings and cities

M2M-enabled sensors can track a multitude of variables in rooms, buildings, and cities, from traffic flow to air pollution, to occupancy control and lighting.

Smart meters

Smart meters often fall under both IoT and M2M categories. They allow tracking of energy or water consumption in real-time, reporting back to the utility company via a cloud platform.

Industrial automation

Smart Manufacturing is the M2M-enabled real-time orchestration and optimization of business, physical and digital processes within factories and across the entire value chain. This industry is increasingly falling under the IoT umbrella due to the complex architecture needed to transfer large quantities of data from plethora of industrial sensors back to the cloud for analysis.

Explore our cellular M2M and IoT solutions

Find out how we can help your IoT deployment achieve close to 100% global connectivity through our advanced cellular IoT technology.

Learn more

Select to view linkedin profile Select to view twitter profile Select to view facebook profile Select to view youtube profile

Eseye

IoT Hardware and Connectivity Specialists

LinkedIn

Eseye brings decades of end-to-end expertise to integrate and optimise IoT connectivity delivering near 100% uptime. From idea to implementation and beyond, we deliver lasting value from IoT. Nobody does IoT better.

In this article

• What is M2M?
• What is the difference between M2M and IoT?
• How does cellular M2M work?
• M2M use cases