The pro­lif­er­a­tion of stan­dard­ized, inter­linked GSfM/​GPRS net­works across large swaths of land­scape, cou­pled with the devel­op­ment of smaller, lower-​​power GPS devices, have been the pri­mary dri­vers for the surg­ing mar­ket for asset track­ing and mon­i­tor­ing in the last few years. We might describe this as Phase 1 of the Mobile Machine-​​to-​​Machine (M2M) Rev­o­lu­tion. But only about ten per­cent of the Earth’s sur­face is cov­ered by ter­res­trial wire­less net­works. What about the other 90 per­cent? For many appli­ca­tions – such as ships and boats at sea, fixed wing air­craft and heli­copters in the air, and vehi­cles and heavy machin­ery in sparsely pop­u­lated regions of the world –  ter­res­trial wire­less data links are unavail­able or unre­li­able.

In addi­tion, mobile data net­works based on con­tended GSM/​GPRS links are sub­ject to dis­rup­tion, inter­fer­ence and over­crowd­ing, espe­cially when stressed. Hur­ri­canes, earth­quakes, ter­ror­ist attacks and other dis­as­ters can totally dis­able cel­lu­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works for long peri­ods of time. And there are still trou­ble­some issues regard­ing roam­ing agree­ments that inhibit deploy­ment of wide-​​area trans-​​border asset track­ing appli­ca­tions. This leaves inter­na­tional enter­prise cus­tomers with a less-​​than-​​perfect solution.

Phase 2 will be dri­ven, we believe, by the devel­op­ment of satellite-​​based solu­tions lever­ag­ing the avail­abil­ity of global low-​​earth orbit (LEO) satel­lite con­nec­tions, cou­pled with the new gen­er­a­tion of very small, low cost satel­lite data devices. The com­bi­na­tion of low-​​cost equip­ment, world­wide cov­er­age and low-​​latency, two-​​way short-​​burst data (SBD) links with remote pro­gram­ma­bil­i­ty­will enable flex­i­ble, global IP-​​based enterprise-​​wide solu­tions based on a com­mon stan­dard­ized data platform.

We don’t see this as an “either-​​or” propo­si­tion. In many cases, the ideal solu­tion will be dual-​​mode devices con­tain­ing both a GSM/​GPRS modem and a satel­lite SBD trans­ceiver, pro­vid­ing a com­pre­hen­sive pack­age for cus­tomers whose appli­ca­tions tran­scend ter­res­trial wire­less cov­er­age. These devices can be pro­grammed to default to wire­less net­works when­ever a cell tower’s sig­nal is avail­able and revert auto­mat­i­cally to the satel­lite data links at all other times. Dual-​​mode is the best of both worlds, pro­vid­ing low-​​cost high-​​bandwidth ser­vice in urban areas and cost-​​effective satel­lite SBD cov­er­age as a gap filler.
Inter­est­ingly, we have had reports that, even in areas of high-​​density mobile wire­less cov­er­age, the dual-​​mode devices are often forced to switch over to the satel­lite SBD links when the con­tention rates are high. For instance, one of our part­ners deployed dual-​​mode satellite/​cellular devices for traffic-​​monitoring along the routes to the sta­dium in Pasadena for the big Rose Bowl game in Jan­u­ary. Because there were many thou­sands of peo­ple using their mobile phones in a highly com­pressed area, the cel­lu­lar net­works were over­whelmed, and the mon­i­tor­ing devices were required to use the satel­lite data links a high per­cent­age of the time.

In short, we see the next phase of the World­wide Mobile M2M Rev­o­lu­tion being dri­ven to a large extent by the avail­abil­ity of afford­able near-​​real-​​time duplex satel­lite SBD links for track­ing and mon­i­tor­ing assets any­where on Earth, aug­ment­ing the ter­res­trial wire­less infra­struc­ture in built-​​up areas. Viva la Revolución!

About the author: Patrick Shay is a Telem­at­ics and LBS indus­try pio­neer with over 20 years back­ground in the GPS and wire­less mar­ket­place. He is cur­rently Vice Pres­i­dent and Gen­eral Man­ager for Data Ser­vice at Irid­ium. He also serves as Chair­man of the Pro­TECTS Alliance.