by James Richmond | Sep 4, 2018 | M2M One News
M2M One Newsletter – September 2018
Welcome to M2M One’s September 2018 Newsletter,
This month’s newsletter comes with a personal note;
As many of you may already know I’ll be stepping down as General Manager at M2M One at the end of September and leaving the business.
It’s been amazing over the past 4 years to watch the business grow from 13,000 active SIM cards to over 160,000! and to go from 3 employees to 10. Working at M2M One I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some of the brightest minds in IoT/M2M and support customers building incredible applications.
The thing I’ve always been most proud of at M2M One has been our commitment to customer service and I’m pleased to see that trend continuing with Gideon Borden taking over management of the sales and customer service team. Gideon has always been a pillar of the M2M team with his commitment to solving problems and finding the right solutions for customers being second to none – Gideon can be contacted at gideon.borden@m2mone.com.au
From an operational standpoint one of the founders of M2M One and Australian IoT pioneer Darren Moroney will be taking over the day to day management of the business. Those of you who deal with our sister company M2M Connectivity are probably already familiar with Darren and his deep industry knowledge and commitment to customer care – Darren can be contacted at Darren.Moroney@m2mone.com.au
I want to take a moment to sincerely thank all of the customers who have chosen to work with M2M One over my tenure as manager, my peers in the IoT industry who always keep me learning, the phenomenal team we’ve built over the last few years and our founders Daryl & Darren for taking a chance on me to run with the business 4 years ago.
Thank you!
James Mack
General Manager | M2M One
- Reminder on M2M One Cat-M1 Coverage
Over the past few months we’ve spent a lot of energy talking about NB-IoT and what’s coming and possible over the next 12 months but one of the elements getting overlooked is that M2M One has complete access already to Telstra’s nationwide Cat-M1 network today. Cat-M1 technology may in fact be more suitable for a lot of customers currently debating where to go from 3G than NB-IoT or LPWAN solutions due to the increased flexibility.
For those of you who missed it you can access a full guide on M2M One’s Cat-M1 network by clicking here: https://www.m2mone.com.au/iot-network-access-from-m2m-one/
To test Cat-M1 on your M2M One account you can simply put any M2M One SIM into a Cat-M1 capable device, our SIMs are Cat-M1 ready out of the box without any additional changes required – You can view our pricing here: https://www.m2mone.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/M2M-One-Australian-Price-List.pdf
M2M One are excited to be sponsoring the inaugural IoT Impact conference when it comes to Sydney in September.
As a company that shares the IoT Alliance of Australia’s vision for empowering Australian business through IoT/M2M we’re excited to be able to exhibit our selection of dedicated data plans for IoT applications to visitors to the conference.
What is IoT Impact?
IoT Impact is a two-day learning campus for Australia business executives – to understand and plan for the impact of the Internet of Things in Australia.
By 2020 the number of IoT connected devices globally is expected to be 30 billion, and this is forecast to grow to 100 billion by 2025. By 2025 the IoT market could be generating revenue close to USD 10 trillion. Every person and every business will feel the impact. IoT Impact is designed to help your company answer the complex questions required to handle and profit from this revolution.
Ticket Options
- Connect Pass ($1125 with code IOTm2m1-C1) – Full access to the IoT Impact Conference, Site Visits, Expo, Workshops, Vendor Labs. As a sponsor of IoT Impact, M2M One are pleased to be able to offer our customers and peers in the IoT industry a 10% discount on the Connect pass by using the code
IOTm2m1-C1
- Access Pass ($125 Early Bird before 10th September) – Access to the IoT Impact Expo, Workshops, Vendor Labs.
M2M One look forward to seeing you at IoT Impact this month – If you’d like to arrange a time at the show with one of our staff please email support@m2mone.com.au
Each month we bring you tips and tricks for getting the most value out of the M2M Control Centre.
Page ActionsThis month you may have noticed a change in the M2M Control Centre, the addition of an
‘Actions’ button on all pages.
The actions button combines several previously separate buttons/actions into a single button and offers different functionality depending on the page you are viewing. Some examples below:
- Services Listing
- Edit selected SIM cards
- Export listing to excel file
- Batch Update
- Upload Excel File
- Export results to excel file
- Billing > Usages
- Export monthly usage to excel file
- Admin > Users
- Create new user
- Delete user
- Edit user
- Export list of users to excel file
- Automation
- Create new rule
- Edit rule
- Delete rule
- Export Automation Rules to excel
Have more questions about the M2M Control Centre or want some training?
Contact your M2M One account manager
by James Richmond | Apr 29, 2015 | M2M and IoT
Last week saw the sophomore year of Connect Expo a new tradeshow in Melbourne. For those of you not familiar here is a blurb form their website complete with their not so subtle jab at a certain show in Sydney that might be happening next week… real smooth guys.
“ CONNECT™ is a large annual trade show organised in partnership with the Victorian Government, which runs together with ten business summits – designed for business people to understand how the convergence of a number of technology megatrends are creating a perfect storm of disruption which will impact the way we live and do business in the future.
CONNECT™ offers a contemporary alternative to Australia’s more traditional, large-scale exhibition/s held in Sydney. “ – http://www.con-nect.com.au/about.html
Almost double the number of exhibitors from 2014
In a lot of ways Connect was a vast improvement from the 2014 show, it felt bigger and more impactful with nearly double the exhibitors and a lot more content. Overall I thought the show was a good one, I’d have liked more focus on M2M/IoT but hey I’m biased…
Saying that; even with its improvements the show still feels like its not quite found its identity yet especially with the Summits – it felt like the organizers threw a collection of 2014s tech buzz words in the air and caught the first 10. As a marketing exercise I can completely understand where they are coming from, but as a participant I thought it felt a little disjointed.
The Expo
I thought on the whole the show floor had a better layout than last year, and the organizers managed to effectively group companies in a similar space together into “Zones”.
A running joke with the other companies in the “IoT Zone” was that we guess the term M2M is officially dead, as probably 80% of the companies identified as “M2M Companies” rather than IoT but hey, you’ve gotta move with the times!
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M2M Connectivity at Connect 2015
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GLYN at Connect 2015
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Pivotel at Connect 2015
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ETM Pacific at Connect 2015
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Netcomm Wireless at Connect 2015
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Buzz Products at Connect 2015
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CSIRO at Connect 2015
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Microsoft IoT at Connect 2015
I caught a couple of the presentations on the show floor in-between manning our booth, the highlight of these was Chris Boek from Metropolis who is always an engaging speaker at these events.
As an exhibitor my biggest concern is always the flow of traffic from the conferences to the show floor, and while there were a few quiet periods I thought the organizers managed to give conference attendees and delegates enough reason to walk through the show to make it feel busy enough.
The IoT Summit
The IoT Summit at Connect Expo
On the second day of the show I took some time away from the booth to visit the IoT Summit and see what new and exciting things were going on in our industry.
Note: Unfortunately I missed the panel session and round tables as I was back at the stand but from all accounts it sounded like the content was very good.
The Summit was chaired by good friend and Australian M2M industry veteran Shane Murphy, now working as an independent IoT/M2M commentator and consultant. (You can follow him at @stcmurphy) – Shane kept the summit moving at a good pace and threw in some good insights and questions in the quiet moments.
50 billions IoT Devices… Why Maciej why?
Having seen presentations from Industry giants Cisco, Huawei and Microsoft before I had a pretty good idea of what to expect – I made an offhanded comment early on about how long it would take to see that infamous Ericsson prediction of 50 billion devices, Maciej Kranz from Cisco had the dubious honor of pulling that old chestnut out 10 minutes into the summit.
I completely understand why these companies are always invited to speak at M2M/IoT events, and they certainly do a good job of sticking to the party line and saying all the right things to make Enterprises salivate but I can’t help but think a lot of the hype and diatribes do more harm than good sometimes.
I thought Greg Stone from Microsoft delivered the better of the presentations from the “big 3” and I’m genuinely interested in what Microsoft are doing with Azure and their new IoT suite of tools. I could do without the Internet of Your Things nonsense though; I know for the enterprise players, branding is probably 80% of the battle but please try and let things happen naturally occasionally.
The afternoon case studies were really the gem of the Summit with three excellent examples of practical uses for IoT applications.
Ozzie to Oyster – Sense-T using sensors to improve marine agriculture.
Amanda Castray from Sense-T showcased how their unique sensor network in Tasmania is bringing huge potential gains to the agriculture and farming industries.
Wattcost’s stick on sensors can read most meters
David Soutar from Wattcost showed how they are putting a more practical and user friendly spin on smart home appliance monitoring and usage, with their simple “stick-on” beacon.
Buzz Products using IoT to disrupt marketing and engage customers with branded products.
Slade Sherman from Buzz Products let us experience the lighter side of the IoT by showing a range of their branded consumer IoT products used in a variety of marketing campaigns and the #buzzbolt which responds to positive tweets with a green light and negative ones with a red light, making the whole presentation more interactive.
1% Savings in Rail can equal up to $600 Million in savings!
The Summit was closed by an excellent presentation from Mark Sheppard from GE Australia/NZ who talked about the “Industrial Internet of Things” (I think we used to call that M2M…) and how a large scale manufacturer of products like GE can get huge returns on investment by using sensors and remote control and automation to improve efficiency by just 1%.
All in all I thought Connect was a success and certainly a step in the right direction for Australia to stake its claim in the IoT & M2M Space. We’re looking forward to coming back next year and seeing how the organizers have responded to feedback from exhibitors and delegates.
Did you attend Connect? Do you have some thoughts on how shows in Australia can better showcase the Machine-to-Machine and Internet of Things space? Let us know on Twitter @M2MOneAU or on LinkedIn at M2M One
James Mack
General Manager – M2M One
The views and opinions expressed in this blog site are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of M2M One or M2M Group.
by James Richmond | Mar 27, 2015 | M2M One News
The closing of Telstra’s 2G network and the expansion of 3G and 4G/LTE technology has spurred companies to look at upgrading their 2G applications and devices. This is a good time to start planning the migration of 2G to 3G/4G devices and M2M One is working behind the scenes to make sure our customers are supported during this transition. Our Voice Plans & International Roaming SIMs will be available in May and and we are happy to talk to you about these new services, our soon to be available 4G/LTE service or anything else in our range of services at Connect Expo next month. We look forward to seeing you there.
This months newsletter features:
- Notification – Voice Plans
- Notification – International Roaming Services
- Reminder – 2G Shut Down
- Blog – The Business of the Internet of Things – Smart Questions for Smart Devices
- Invitation – Connect Expo
1. Notification – Voice Plans
We bring you an update on M2M One’s Voice Plans. Offering affordable packages to fit your M2M communication needs, our Voice Plans will be commercially available in May. The PAYG and bundles rates are listed below.
The Voice plans support M2M applications where voice calls, machine call back, DTMF, and emergency dialing are required. If you would like more information on our Voice Plans, please contact M2M One.
| Pay Per Use |
1 Minute Bundle |
10 Minute Bundle |
| $1.20 per minute |
Monthly Fee – $1.10 per month |
Monthly Fee – $4.40 per month |
| $0.02 per second |
Excess usage – $0.018 per second |
Excess usage – $0.018 per second |
2. Notification – International Roaming Services
As mentioned in our January newsletter M2M One are engaging an alternative SIM provider for global roaming services to allow us to better service our customers.
I’m pleased to announce that this relationship is now in place and we will be able to offer roaming SIMs for a selection of countries with group plan options from 500KBs – 30MB – Full commercial pricing and available countries will be made available at the end of April.
For customers wishing to activate roaming on their existing M2M One SIM cards, this option is available at a pay per use rate of $4.00 per MB and only on the APNs “telstra.m2m” & “m2mone.com.au”
As always we advise customers with large scale international deployments to contact us directly for custom pricing and logistics.
3. Reminder – Telstra 900MHz 2G Shut Down
We would like to remind our customers that Telstra will discontinue their 2G/GSM network on the 1st of December 2016. This has implications for M2M One customers using 2G 900MHz GSM/GPRS modems.
M2M One customers with 2G devices have the opportunity to utilize 3G and soon 4G LTE. All M2M One SIM cards are compatible with the Telstra 2G, 3G and soon 4G network so you will not need to physically change any SIM cards from M2M One.
M2M One customers affected by the shut down of Telstra’s 2G/GSM network who are looking for solutions/alternatives for their 2G/GSM devices are advised to contact a 3G/4G LTE device vendor. Please read M2M One’s notification of the shutdown if you haven’t already.
4. Blog – The Business of the Internet of Things – Smart Questions for Smart Devices
M2M One’s blog navigates the hype of the Internet of Things. As IoT becomes ubiquitous, James Mack suggests questions customers should ask themselves in order to arrive at measured ways of climbing aboard the IoT juggernaut.
“The IoT is a powerful movement that will change the way we interact with the world around us…but like any tool the more you use it the more proficient you get with it, experiment, make mistakes but make sure you have a set goal in mind.”
Read the full blog.
5. Invitation – Visit M2M One at Connect
CONNECT is a showcase of the technologies transforming business, government and society. Visit Connect to explore the latest in cloud, data analytics, mobility and collaboration solutions to wearable tech, cybersecurity, devices, IoT, drones and network infrastructure,
M2M One invites you to the Connect Expo where we will be exhibiting our services on stand no. 24.
Date: 21 & 22 April 2015
Time: 10am to 4pm daily
Place: Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
You can register for the expo free of charge, and we’re please to offer our customers 10% off conference registration fees by using the code “M2M” before the 10th of April.
Drop in and say hello. We will be happy to help you with comms for your M2M/IoT project.
by James Richmond | Jan 22, 2015 | M2M and IoT
Can you feel it? That swelling, bubbling torrent of hype? It started as a gentle nudge, maybe you saw it in an article, maybe a friend mentioned it over dinner or maybe one of your colleagues suggested you start looking into it… “The Internet of Things (IoT)”
Get out of the way, the IoT is coming! – Image courtesy of Gartner
If you’re anything like me – when you first heard the term the only thing you could think of was having a stern word with the genius that came up with such a terrible name; but sure enough people stuck with it and we as an industry seem to have embraced it.
Now it’s here to stay and everyone from major news outlets like CNN, financial journals like WSJ to my favorite podcasts are talking about it. It seems like there’s no escaping it, and now you have thousands of start-ups telling you why you need their particular wireless wonder device.
But that’s nothing new to you right? As a business leader you’ve had people trying to sell you the latest and greatest solution ever since you took the job. The problem with the Internet of Things is the compound nature of it’s spawning ground – The Internet. We had a sample of this with the last big trend in enterprise IT, good old Big Data but that was manageable because for the most part it focused on business. IoT is straddling that blurry line between consumer products and business tools, which compounds the noise ten-fold.
You’ve got analysts, experts and gurus telling you that your business needs to get on the IoT train before you miss out. The glaring problem I see with this statement is that if it’s supposed to be the powerful force for change it’s being hyped to be, why is it going anywhere? Sometimes it’s not about being first, it’s about being smart and whatever you do, don’t ask the question…
“How do I get started with IoT?”
This question is the exact opposite of the million-dollar question; in fact it will probably end up costing you a lot more. Asking how assumes that you’ve answered the real question, which is “Why?”
I could introduce you to solutions that would connect nearly everything in your business to the Internet; your office heating and cooling system, your fleet of company vehicles, your electricity meters and even your vacuum cleaner, but ask yourself “Why?”
Trust me, the “How?” is going down the rabbit hole, it only leads to more questions. Start with the “Why?” and you start with a set goal that you need to achieve, this partially follows on from my previous post on control you need an outcome or you’re just throwing money at nothing.
You already have the answers
Unless you’re doing something very wrong, you are surrounded by people who understand your business inside and out, most people if they are even a tenth invested in doing a good job will have some ideas around how to make their job more efficient. The problem is they might not have the tools to do it.
That’s really the idea behind the IoT, it’s providing you with the tools to get the information you need to produce actionable results.
Here’s an example:
The Challenge
You’ve got an asset (it doesn’t really matter what it is); the important thing is that the more time it spends outside of a particular location (let’s say your warehouse), the more money you make.
The Solution
So you fit a tracking device that sends you streams and streams of data in real time and all of a sudden you know absolutely everything about the movement of that particular asset down to the second.
The Results
It’s great! You employ a data analyst to crawl through every single event record and location string and work out that this asset needs to spend an additional 10% of it’s time outside of your warehouse for your to make 5% more revenue this month.
But….
Here’s the problem, the capital cost of the tracking device, hiring and analyst and the monthly fee for the data costs you nearly as much as you make from the analytics. Now you’re back to square one.
You’ve done the right thing, you’ve got the smart question and now you’ve got the smart device, but your no better off than when you started.
Analyze This! As in events.. That are useful to your business – Copyright Warner Brothers Pictures
Analyze events, not everything
This is because you tracked the wrong thing; you tracked the asset when you should have been tracking the warehouse.
Instead of tracking the asset all the time, you set up a geo-fence around your warehouse, now you know exactly when the asset leaves and when it comes back, all the other information you had was nice to have but effectively useless for this exercise.
By only tracking when needed you can go for a cheaper tracking device, pay less in monthly fees and you don’t need to hire a full time analyst to dig for results. That’s the true power of The Internet of Things. I know this is a rather crude and simplistic example but the message remains the same, focus on the result you need not what your M2M/IoT device can do.
So what am I really trying to say here? Yes, the IoT is a powerful movement that will change the way we interact with the world around us and you should be excited, I know I am. But like any tool the more you use it the more proficient you get with it, experiment, make mistakes but make sure you have a set goal in mind.
James Mack
General Manager – M2M One
The views and opinions expressed in this blog site are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of M2M One or M2M Group.
by James Richmond | Jan 13, 2015 | M2M and IoT
The other day a friend and I were talking about smart watches, more specifically how neither of us had any interest in buying one. It wasn’t that we didn’t think they were cool, and I’ve got to admit this Metal Gear Solid theme for the Moto 360 makes my inner nerd far too happy, but the fact is we couldn’t see any real benefits to having one.
Now thats my kind of Smart Watch – Image from FaceRepo
This got me thinking about what makes a successful B2B M2M app or a successful B2C IoT app, then I realized, it’s the same thing… Control! (more…)
