TeliaSonera joins FT/DT M2M collaboration

Nordic and Baltic carrier TeliaSonera has joined the collaborative M2M programme announced by Orange and Deutsche Telekom in February 2011. The project was put in place to create seamless international M2M services across the portfolios of the German and French incumbents. At launch the agreement covered France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, with the Netherlands and the UK joining subsequently. The addition of TeliaSonera adds Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia and Lituania into the mix.

While many current and proposed M2M applications involve the connection of static devices, some of the most advanced are international in nature. Fleet management and in-vehicle systems in particular will benefit from the availability of consistent cross-border services.

“With this agreement, now three groups are significantly pushing the boundaries of the M2M ecosystem,” said Anne-Marie Thiollet, EVP Enterprise Line of Business, Orange Business Services. “Global availability and reliability will spur the commercial adoption of M2M services and will stimulate new innovations. We are happy to welcome  TeliaSonera as a member of our partnership and look forward to other carriers joining us in this endeavour; only by working together can we make the great promise of M2M a reality.”

M2M is an area of increasing importance to the operator community, particularly in advanced markets where traditional subscriber bases have become saturated. The prediction from industry leading infrastructure and services vendor Ericsson that there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020 has become almost accepted thinking among many industry players.

“M2M has a very large economic potential and this cooperation with three of the strongest brands in the market enhances our international offers,” said Håkan Dahlström, president of Mobility Services, TeliaSonera. “We know that the services connected to M2M communication in many cases is vital for business and puts clear requirements on us as a communication operator.”