Market, standardization, and regulation development in Machine-to-Machine communications

The evolution of M2M (Machine-to-Machine) systems is gaining momentum in recent years. Ubiquitous wireless and wireline connectivity, and declining prices of communication modules are the main drivers of such a positive trend. While the potential market opportunities for M2M are immense, there are still many open issues: global market and standards fragmentation, privacy and security, numerous technological challenges (e.g. device management, network scalability, device authentication on the provider's network, charging rules), as well as incompatible and incomplete regulation policies in different countries. In this paper we give an overview of the current state of the M2M market and standardization efforts in the complex and diverse M2M ecosystem. Standardization bodies (e.g. ETSI, 3GPP, ITU-T) have become more active in the standardization of M2M systems because of its growing market demands. This paper also gives an insight into the regulation processes, with the focus on specific ongoing projects in the USA and in the European Union. Finally, it shows how EU directives are transposed into Croatian legislation and presents one of HAKOM's projects proposed in cooperation with academia, industry, and network operators.