A lack of standards in M2M have been repeatedly flagged up a key barrier driving the M2M market forwards. Over the last few years, various Standard Development Organisations (SDOs) have been working on unifying initiatives to help drive the M2M market forward.
On 24th July 2012, a number of global standards bodies (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TIA, TTA, and TTC) signed a definitive agreement to provide a common, efficient and widely available M2M Service Layer, which can be readily embedded within various hardware and software. The goal is to generate cooperative M2M community standards, which will lead to regularly enhanced releases of the M2M Service Layer specifications, known as oneM2M.
The first job of the standards body will be to create two groups along the framework of the timeline shown here:
1. A Steering Committee to approve scope and direction and work of the Technical Plenary and manages overall process and oversight of issues.
2. A Technical Plenary divided into a number of working groups to define the technical scope of various aspects of the M2M service layer e.g. common security framework.
There is clearly a benefit to developing a framework of agreed global standards that will benefit end-users, equipment providers, service providers, standard development organizations and others.
In theory it will help develop a set of standards that will allow devices to communicate with middleware across multiple geographies and industries, from the smart grid and smart home, to vehicles and healthcare.
The oneM2M Timeline
Source: oneM2M
Individual standards bodies such as ETSI have been working on standards since at least 2009, and now there appears to be a serious statement of intent to drive forward a common service layer to allow for maximum application reuse and lower set-up costs of M2M projects, ranging from devices to middleware/software and applications across multiple countries and continents. Areas such as cloud computing will now become a reality in M2M...
All this sounds ideal-problem solved, right? Only it isn’t that simple.
Here's why:
1. Different vertical industries have different requirements and a variety of standards within those markets. One service layer will not work equally across all industry sectors.
2. Regulation, so critical in M2M development, is at different stages across different regions. Standards bodies can advise but not dictate the policies of different governments across different markets.
3. Harmonization: Different industries have different protocols talking to different devices. Applications are built and developed according to different industry protocols and specifications. Harmonizing standards means getting agreement within the industries themselves...
4. Financing-there are some guidelines from OneM2M in terms of financing the work to develop common standards, but getting a group of disparate members of different standards bodies with different interests to agree on who pays will be a major challenge.
Nevertheless, the outlook isn't bleak. The SDOs are undoubtedly aware of all the challenges faced, but what this means are that the industry won't spring forwards as quickly as some are predicting. Aligning the various elements in the M2M service layer will require time and focus-and will happen on an industry by industry basis with all the challenges that involves. It's clear that much if the work is needed e.g. standardization around security, but it is clear that certain industries such as smart grid/energy, transportation and healthcare will see the benefits ahead of a broad set of common global standards truly become a reality.