The agreement, which initially was signed by France Telecom-Orange and Deutsche Telekom in February 2011 to cover France, Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg, has since then added the Netherlands (Deutsche Telekom) and most recently the UK through Everything Everywhere to its purview. The M2M service footprint will now extend to cover TeliaSonera’s geographical reach, including Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania.
While roaming agreements have been managed bi-laterally only, concentrated within single markets, this multi-lateral cooperation agreement will provide roaming services with enhanced service quality across the countries that have signed the agreement, thus enhancing customer experience. Continuous connection quality and network interoperability ensure M2M services for both machines and goods on the move (in the transportation and automotive industries, for example), and for customers whose business models require continuous access (eHealth providers, for example). So dedicated network supervision processes and interoperability are vital in leveraging the relatively low volume but highly critical data collected by these devices and delivering cutting-edge applications to users.
Against this background both the partners and the customers using M2M solutions will benefit from operability across borders and enhanced M2M service quality in the mobile networks of the cooperation members. But the three groups are not only focused on enlarging the M2M service footprint, but also to keep an elevated level of innovation, by extending the M2M service portfolio and by entering into further partnerships in the M2M market segment.
“With this agreement, now three groups are significantly pushing the boundaries of the M2M ecosystem,” said Anne-Marie Thiollet, Executive Vice President 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 endeavor; only by working together can we make the great promise of M2M a reality.”
A key feature of the agreement is the incident and troubleshooting capability that France Telecom-Orange, Deutsche Telekom and TeliaSonera will be improving to ensure the best quality of roaming services to their customers. Because machine-to-machine communication is business critical for M2M customers, all M2M roaming services will have a dedicated support component, significantly improving previous industry attempts at troubleshooting and providing much shorter repair time compared to regular procedures.
"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. The cooperation will enhance a better customer experience cross border in our markets and increase quality in our offers that will support the development of M2M services,” Håkan Dahlström concludes.