Carriers Help The Enterprise With M2M

M2M and connected devices provide much-needed data to on-the-go workers. As such, wireless carriers are now offering enhanced solutions and mobile apps, providing businesses owners and CIOs with the means to give field workers new methods to gather and process data from mobile devices.

Last Friday, Verizon, www.verizon.com, announced it is now rolling out Networkfleet on the Verizon Wireless Network. This follows Verizon’s acquisition of Hughes Telematics, which provided the Networkfleet solution.

The technology allows fleet managers and business operations staff to monitor speed, fuel consumption, drivers, and vehicles, while maintaining vehicles through diagnostics. Businesses can use the system for fleet tracking, asset tracking, fleet maps, vehicle diagnostics with alerts, roadside assistance, and preventative maintenance, among other functions.

The system combines in-vehicle hardware and a Web-based application to store, view, and analyze data on specific vehicles or fleets on a whole.

Networkfleet can be applicable for a wide range of industries including transportation, energy and utilities, government, retail and distribution, construction, insurance, healthcare, and media and entertainment.

Verizon is deploying Networkfleet initially to 18,000 company vehicles in its fleet this year, which will allow it to achieve its sustainability goal of decreasing its carbon footprint.

Certainly, many of the mobile carriers are offering technologies to enable organizations to manage fleets through the use of M2M and telematics.

Beyond just the fleet, AT&T, www.att.com, is also looking to connect the field worker through a new set of cloud-based mobile apps. Announced last week, pdvConnect provides businesses with apps to document situations in realtime by speaking, taking photos, or sharing location information.

For example, one app will allow dispatchers to manage communications through a Web-based Command Center Console, while another will help dispatchers prioritize customer requests. For the workers in the field, a new app will enable sending of status and issue updates, while another will allow field workers to reply to text messages using voice.

AT&T says the new cloud-based mobile apps provide businesses a way to shave time off communications with the workers in the field and expand business efficiency and productivity.

As M2M, telematics, and mobile apps become more widely used in businesses across the country, technology providers—and carriers—will continue to come to market with new and advanced solutions.