There is an emerging trend among wireless carriers and specialist machine-to-machine (M2M) service providers to seek out the means to continue to serve their current M2M customers as those customers extend their own products and services into new geographic markets.

 

Carriers and service providers that currently operate in one market would rather not lose the international business of existing local customers to overseas competitors. So they have an increasingly urgent need to secure the partnerships necessary to extend the footprint of their M2M connectivity and thereby the reach of their services around the world.

 

The internationalization of the M2M market is increasing all the time, with more enterprises wishing to launch international lines of business, more carriers seeking to provide global SIM solutions, and more operators entering into strategic partnerships to facilitate service interoperability across borders. Additionally, platform vendors have been building M2M service management platforms that allow enterprises to manage networks of connected devices that are deployed across multiple carriers worldwide.

 

When the UK carrier EverythingEverywhere launched its M2M service management platform [in September], it also announced a partnership with M2M specialist REDTAIL Telematics. The carrier has now announced its second such agreement by forming a partnership with another North American M2M specialist, the long-standing RACO Wireless.

 

As a result, EverythingEverywhere will now be supplying RACO Wireless’ customers with connectivity for their international operations so they can expand throughout Europe.

 

[The deal] in itself is something of a coup. When a service provider moves to a new continental market the tendency is to seek out a connectivity provider with the largest geographic coverage, not one that operates in one national market only. But herein lies the strategic importance of the second part of EverythingEverywhere’s announcement: the carrier has joined a Service Alliance established by France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom earlier this year.