"Cingular, Sprint, Verizon and Orange are increasingly interested in offering 'cellular machine-to-machine (M2M) communications.' It turns virtually any object into a networked object, via mobile telephony... M2M involves the use of cellular communications to connect remote sensing and monitoring devices to central networks wirelessly. It is often used for industrial process monitoring, usage metering and security applications... In essence, this would give the cellular carriers more enterprise data traffic to go along with their voice traffic -- and with less churn."
related: Strong Growth Forecast for Cellular Machine-to-Machine Communications
"How does this kind of M2M work? Consider utility meters that communicate their measurements to the power or gas company via cellular calls. Think of temperature and pressure monitoring of industrial equipment, particularly in the field. Think of pipeline flow monitoring. Some sensors can help optimize performance of equipment on the factory floor."
