Welcome to the November edition of the M2M One Newsletter.

Hard to believe we are already heading to the end of the year.
This month we provide details of Telstra’s yearly embargo on IPX changes, and some information regarding Christmas closure of the M2M One Office.

We also invite everyone to join us at the virtual trade shows we are participating in, and to view the recent webinar we co-hosted with M2M Connectivity and Telstra. The topic of discussion was the progress of the 3G Shutdown, which is drawing ever-closer.

Gideon Borden
Senior Director – Sales & Operations | M2M One

• Impact of Coronavirus

In Victoria (where M2M One are headquartered) the fight again Covid-19 has been hard.  While the state has come out of lockdown and restrictions have eased, we would like to assure all our customers that we are an essential service, and we remain open for business. We are following all the new rules and regulations set down by the Government to ensure that we can remain open for all our staff and customers.

We have taken extra precautions and are running with a bare minimum skeleton crew in the office, with majority of staff working from home.

We would like to thank all of our customers for the ongoing support, and remain hopeful that things will return to normal in the near future.

• Telstra End of Year Restriction (Embargo)

We would like to inform  all customers that Telstra will have its annual Embargo period on IPX changes – If you believe you will need any IPX services over the Christmas period, please make sure you let your account manager know ASAP.

Restriction Overview: no new IPX orders or change requests.

Start time: Wednesday 23rd December 2020

End Time: Monday 11th January 2021

• M2M One Christmas Closure Dates

The M2M One Office will be closed from:
Wednesday 23rd December 2020 (2:00pm) – Friday 8th January 2021, reopening for normal business on Monday 11th January 2021.

Last date for shipment of SIMs:
SIM Card orders need to be in by 12:00pm (Melbourne Time) Friday 18th December 2020 to guarantee delivery before Christmas.

There will a skeleton staff on call for emergency situations.

• 3G Shutdown Webinar

Last month, we co-hosted our first webinar on the 3G shutdown. We would like to thank everyone who attended.

For those who were unable to join in, we are providing a recording of the webinar and the subsequent Q&A session, which can be viewed here:
3G Shutdown | The Key Considerations for Upgrading Your Environment to LTE

Again, thank you to all those who attended, and we look forward to presenting more in our Webinar Series.

•    Events Attended

Due to current Covid-19 situation, all events have been cancelled. Interestingly however, we have managed to have many more face-to-face meetings using technologies such as Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business and Zoom.

If you would like to have a face-to-face meeting with one of our staff, please just reach out and we can arrange a video conference to help work through your M2M/IoT needs.

While physical expos are still suspended due to the current COVID situation, some events have moved online. Read on to find out where you can “see” us! 

• IoT Festival:

M2M One are proud to be participating in the IoT Festival, which is live now. It will be full of information about the current IoT Industry, as well as plans for the future. 

For more information on the event please see below:

https://www.iothub.com.au/iotfestival-iot-conference/

• National Roads and Traffic:

We are excited to be attending the first virtual National Roads and Traffic Expo. The event will run over 2 days (30th November – 1st December) and will have a wide range of information, speakers and exhibitors. 

M2M One will have a virtual booth in the expo, with information on our products and services. It will also allow event patrons to timetable meetings with our staff members to discuss our offerings in detail.

We look forward to being able to attend physical expos when they return.

https://www.terrapinn.com/exhibition/road-traffic-expo/index.stm

Each month we bring you tips and tricks for getting the most value out of the M2M Control Centre.

Custom Field Management:

Have more questions about the M2M Control Centre or want some training?
Contact your M2M One account manager

Welcome to the September edition of the M2M One Newsletter.

This month we look back on the successful Cat M1 vs NB-1 webinar, and would also like to invite everyone to come to our first virtual expo – the IoT Festival.

Gideon Borden
Senior Director – Sales & Operations | M2M One

• Impact of Coronavirus

In Victoria (where M2M One are headquartered) the fight again Covid-19 has been hard.  While the state is ever so slowly coming out of Stage 4 restrictions, we would like to assure all our customers that as we are an essential service we remain open for business. We are following all the new rules and regulations set down by the Government to ensure that we can remain open for all our staff and customers.

We have taken extra precautions and are running with a bare minimum skeleton crew in the office, with majority of staff working from home.

We would like to thank all of our customers for the ongoing support, and remain hopeful that things will return to normal in the near future. 

• NB-IoT vs Cat M1 Webinar

Last month, we held our first Webinar on the difference between NB-IoT and Cat M1. We would like to thank everyone who attended.

For those who were unable to join in, we are providing a recording of the webinar and the subsequent Q&A session, which can be viewed here:
M2M One | Webinar | Cat M1 Vs NB IoT – Making the best choice for your IoT application

There is also a Q&A transcript document from the event which can be downloaded here: https://www.m2mone.com.au/download/cat-m1-v-nb-iot-qa-transcript/

Again thank you to all those who attended, and we look forward to presenting more in our upcoming Webinar Series.

•    Events Attended

Due to current Covid-19 situation, all events have been cancelled. Interestingly however, we have managed to have many more face-to-face meetings using technologies such as Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business and Zoom.

If you would like to have a face-to-face meeting with one of our staff, please just reach out and we can arrange a video conference to help work through your M2M/IoT needs.

While physical expos are still suspended due to the current situation, one of the expos has moved online. M2M One are proud to be participating in the IoT Festival, which is live now.  It will be full of information about the current IoT Industry, as well as plans for the future. 

For more information on the event please see below:

https://www.iothub.com.au/iotfestival-iot-conference/

We look forward to being able to attend expos when they return.

Each month we bring you tips and tricks for getting the most value out of the M2M Control Centre.

Have more questions about the M2M Control Centre or want some training?
Contact your M2M One account manager

Welcome to the August edition of the M2M One Newsletter. 

This month we confirm the successful completion of the Jasper HLR Migration, as well as a reminder about the upcoming Cat M1/NB-IoT Webinar being held on August 25th.  We are also attending our first virtual expo this year – the IoT Festival. Read on to find out more.

Gideon Borden
Senior Director – Sales & Operations | M2M One

• Impact of Coronavirus

In Victoria (where M2M One are headquartered) the fight again Covid-19 has been hard. While the state is in Stage 4 restrictions, we would like to assure all our customers that we are an essential service and we remain open for business. We are following all the new rules and regulations set down by the Government to ensure that we can remain open.

We have taken extra precautions and are running with a bare minimum skeleton crew in the office, with majority of staff working from home.

We would like to thank all of our customers for the ongoing support, and remain hopeful that things will return to normal in the near future.

• NB-IoT vs Cat M1 Webinar

M2M One are proud to announce the first in our new series of Webinars. We recently updated you all on the launch of our commercial NB-IoT product, and we are glad to say that we have received a lot of great feedback and questions about the solution. There is still a lot of confusion around the differences between NB-IoT and Cat M1.

With this in mind, our first webinar will discuss the various benefits of NB-IoT and Cat M1, and which technology is the right tool for your solution.

We are also excited to announce that we will have Wayne Law from Telstra presenting on the webinar to discuss the Telstra network, and what goes into the mapping tools used to determine coverage.

The webinar will take place on Tuesday 25th August at 10:30am. 
There is still time to register to join if you have not already done so. To join please register at the link below:

• Telstra Wireless Control Centre (Cisco Jasper) Maintenance Window.

We again want to thank all of our customers for their patience and support through the Jasper maintenance window. We appreciate that it was difficult with the short notice after the initial push-back, however we are happy to announce that the migration went through without any major issues.

•    Events Attended

Due to current Covid-19 situation, all events have been cancelled. Interestingly however, we have managed to have many more face-to-face meetings using technologies such as Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business and Zoom.

If you would like to have a face-to-face meeting with one of our staff, please just reach out and we can arrange a video conference to help work through your M2M/IoT needs.

While physical expos are still suspended due to the current situation, one of the expos has moved online. M2M One are proud to be participating in the IoT Festival, which will be held online from September-December.  It will be full of information about the current IoT Industry, as well as plans for the future. 

For more information on the event please see below:

https://www.iothub.com.au/iotfestival

We look forward to being able to attend expos when they return.

Each month we bring you tips and tricks for getting the most value out of the M2M Control Centre.

Security Automation Rules

The Control Centre has a great number of Automation Rules which we have discussed in the past. This month we would like to focus on a specific security automation rule which can be helpful in ensure your devices are not abused in the field.

Unfortunately it is not uncommon for the SIM cards in M2M/IoT devices to be removed without permission, and placed into other devices (such as phones, WiFi hotspots etc) and abused for the free data. Often this can create very high amount of data overuse, which can be very costly (especially if your plan has a high excess data rate).

There are many ways to help prevent this, (and for more detailed advice please get in touch with the team for specific issues), however today we will discuss one method of protection by using the “Security” Automation Rule in Jasper.

This rule is based on a registered IMEI change. Essentially you can program a trigger, so that if the network detects an IMEI number has changed, it will process a pre-determined action. Those actions can include:
·         Send an email notification
·         Change the SIM Status (eg deactivate the SIM)
·         Push an API message
·         Send an SMS notification

This simple security rule will allow you to ensure that the only data being used is on the device you have deployed.

Have more questions about the M2M Control Centre or want some training?
Contact your M2M One account manager

Welcome to the July edition of the M2M One Newsletter.

We have some very exciting news this month. The long-awaited Commercial NB-IoT Plans are launched and are now live – read on below for more information.
There is also another reminder on next week’s Jasper maintenance window.

Gideon Borden
Senior Director – Sales & Operations | M2M One

• Telstra Wireless Control Centre (Cisco Jasper) Maintenance WindowAs mentioned in previous notifications, there will be some disruptions to your Telstra Wireless M2M Control Centre services due to planned network maintenance work that will occur next week.

  What is being done?
  The Telstra Wireless M2M Control Centre services will no longer make use of the CISCO mobile network database and instead services will be provisioned and authenticated on the Telstra mobile network.

  The aim is to provide a more scalable and resilient IoT connectivity solution. There will be no changes to the actual Control Centre application, and the management and control of devices within the application will continue to be handled as they are today.

  What will be done?
  A signalling cut-over will take place during a 13-hour maintenance window, where the mobile signalling of all M2M Control Centre services will be migrated to Telstra’s core mobile network. During this maintenance period the impact will be as follows:

  • Delayed Mobile Terminating (MT) SMS delivery.
  • Mobile Terminating Voice may be impacted during the maintenance window.
  • There is no anticipated impact to data services.

  When will this take place?
  The signalling cut-over will take place over two separate nights:
  1. On the 21st of July 2020 from 18:00 until 07:00 on the 22nd of July AEST.
  2. On the 23rd of July 2020 from 18:00 until 07:00 on the 24th of July AEST.

  In order to ensure that the two databases stay in synchronisation and no changes take place, a freeze will be put in place on the M2M Control Centre.

  The freeze will start at 00:00 AEST on the 21st of July until 07:00 on the 24th of July.

  During this freeze period all access to the M2M Control Centre will be blocked, the full details are as follows:

  • Any automation rule which may result in a change in SIM state or communication plan will be suspended during the maintenance window. There will be no impact to all other automation rules. The cycle-to-date usage will continue to accumulate. After the freeze period the automation rules will be resumed.
  • There will be a provisioning freeze during this period which means no services will be able to change state.
  • All services will remain in their current state as at the start of the freeze period i.e. services will not automatically move from test ready through to activated based on usage (If you anticipate changes to any services (Activation/Purge etc) will be required during the freeze period then we recommend proactively undertaking those changes before the 21st of July 00.00 to minimise any impact to your services).
  • All user logins will be disabled to prevent any updates on Control Centre. Any attempt to login to the application will be shown an error message in the user interface (login screen).
  • Any user logged into the application will be forced out (logged off).
  • All SOAP/REST API access will be revoked during this freeze period.
  • All daily JPO reports will not be impacted.
  • SIM Ordering will be suspendedIf any of these dates or times change, an updated notification will be sent, informing you of the revised schedule.

• Impact of Coronavirus

The COVID situation this past month has been very difficult for Victoria (where M2M One’s headquarters are located). While many other parts of the country are starting to come out of lockdown, we are reminded that there is long way to go with this battle and we will continue to fight.

As an essential service, we would like to remind our customers across the country that we are still open for business. We will continue to run a skeleton staff in the office for the time being, but are able to ship any SIM orders required. If you need to place an order, please email orders@m2mone.com.au with your requirement and we will dispatch them within 1 business day. Please do keep in mind that during this time Australia Post are experiencing delays – your patience is appreciated.

We would also like to continue to remind customers that during the downtime we are available to help in auditing your account to ensure you are on the most efficient plans possible. If you would like to arrange an audit of your account please get in touch with the Customer Service Management Team or your account manager.

• NB-IoT Update

M2M One are happy to announce the official launch of the our NB-IoT offering. Based on the largest cellular network in the country NB-IoT provides many opportunities in the IoT and M2M space.

A  reminder on what NB-IoT is:

NB-IoT is a low-power, wide-area cellular network (LPWAN) technology which uses 200KHz of bandwidth to transfer data. Generally, the maximum upload data transfer rate is around 62.5kb per second. The slightly slower data transfer rate is offset by lower power consumption and device affordability.

NB-IoT is designed for simple devices which infrequently send data, and require a longer battery life.
If you have widely-deployed devices in the field (such as gas, electricity or water meters, environmental sensors, or building automation) that do not need to send frequent updates, this may be a suitable technology for your requirements.

However in many cases, NB-IoT will not be the correct technology to use for your deployment. There are some inherent limitations:

• NB-IoT cannot send any SMS or Voice.
• NB-IoT does not support cell tower handover.
• NB-IoT send data at a much slower rate than say Cat M1 meaning you need to remain on the network longer in order to send your data.

Pricing:

To simplify deployment of NB-IoT device we have introduced the NB-IoT Tokens. Each Token will represent one calendar months’ network carriage for an NB-IoT SIM and can be purchased and topped up automatically as needed. Packs start from 100 Tokens and become cheaper as you purchase more. There will be three Token data amounts to choose from:

• Bronze – 85kb.
• Silver – 256kb.
• Gold – 427kb.

Taking the above in consideration, if you are ready to develop and launch an NB-IoT product, please speak to our team for a no-obligation consultation around pricing, development, terms and conditions of the NB-IoT Plans.

Some resources to get you started:

• Information on NB-IoT and how to get in touch – Click Here
• Price guide for NB-IoT Tokens 
• NB-IoT Coverage Guide – Click Here

• Events Attended

Due to current Covid-19 situation, all events have been cancelled. Interestingly however we have managed to have many more face-to-face meetings using technologies such as Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business and Zoom.

If you would like to have a face-to-face meeting with one of our staff, please just reach out and we can arrange a video conference to help discuss your M2M/IoT requirements.

We are not yet sure how the new restrictions placed on Victoria are going to affect the events planned for later this year. At this time there have been no further announcements.

We expect a change in the situation will depend on how we as a community come together to fight COVID.

When have more information on which expos will be open for attendance we will update all of our customers.

Each month we bring you tips and tricks for getting the most value out of the M2M Control Centre.

Have more questions about the M2M Control Centre or want some training?
Contact your M2M One account manager