Nokia Siemens is partnering UK cellco EverythingEverywhere to equip vending machines with machine-to-machine (M2M) communication capabilities.

 

The duo plans to equip vending machines with SIM cards connecting to EverythingEverywhere’s UK network and the global infrastructure of parent firms France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, to enable remote monitoring of stock levels and NFC wireless payment capabilities for consumers. Machines will be linked to a cloud based NSN management tool, which integrates the vendor’s M2M platform with that of EverythingEverywhere.

 

Bernd Gross, head of NSN’s M2M business line, says the carrier partnership enables his firm to “offer our customers a reduced time to market of up to 60%,” for deploying M2M. He estimates the pair has access to half a million machines in the UK alone, “and many millions more around the world.”

 

Separately, NSN today revealed upgrades to the CDMA EV-DO standard it claims increases data capacity in loaded cells by up to 40%, and requires only a software update to deploy.