Jasper Technologies has announced that Telecom Italia’s Digital Solutions unit has selected it to provide a platform for IoT services. The deal will support Telecom Italia’s (TI’s) domestic and global enterprise customers, and brings the number of Jasper operator partners to 22, with 1,500 enterprises using its framework around the world.
Jasper provides what it claims to be the “only purpose built cloud-based platform to enable companies to launch and manage connected services”. Its system supports GM’s connected cars, GE’s jet engines, Heineken’s brewery and keg-levels, Securitas’s alarms, Amazon Kindle’s downloads and Starbucks’s DSL transaction redundancy system. This latest deal gives companies access to the Jasper platforms over the TI network, both in home markets and while roaming – which is where Jasper sees the value of its cellular M2M product.
TI now joins other operator supporters such as America Movil, AT&T, CSL, Etisalat, KPN, NTT Docomo, Rogers, Telefonica, Telenor and Telstra. However, it will not be using Jasper exclusively. As the IoT diversifies across many device types and applications, some carriers will turn to multiple platforms with different strengths. So TI is also deploying Ericsson’s Device Connection Platform, targeted at the B2B2C electronic devices market – for applications in automotive, connected car and industrial segments and the smart city in particular, including infrastructure and smart metering.
This dual-supplier approach mirrors the fact that Jasper and Ericsson are rapidly becoming the highest profile M2M platforms for carriers, and each one powers one of the main operator alliances in this field. Ericsson underpins the Global M2M Association, which includes Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Bell Canada, Softbank and TeliaSonera; while Jasper has been adopted by the alternative M2M Alliance, whose members include Vodafone, Etisalat, KPN, VimpelCom, TI, Swisscom, Telekom Austria and NTT Docomo (plus many vendors).
TI’s Digital Solutions division was created in June 2013, with the goal of digitally transforming business customers with M2M, IoT, digital multichannel CRM systems and cloud computing. While not a technology provider, it analyzes business models and methods and then advises on how to improve these approaches with additional technology.
An important area of this strategy is IoT connectivity, because turning a previously dumb object into a connected smart product unleashes a host of potential benefits and services, which can generate new revenues for the provider and outweigh the cost of connecting the object in the first place.
Some of the benefits are well known, such as security – it has long been common practice to track cars and plant equipment so that they can be recovered if stolen, and that locational data also allows a business to engage in fleet management and analysis – saving on fuel costs by mapping optimal routes, or planning asset deployments based on historical usage patterns.
The difference nowadays is that such systems are moving to mobile broadband networks rather than relying on GSM or on proprietary connections. And broadband allows other benefits and services to be layered in – for instance, the data gathered through connected device usage – knowing when, how and where customers may use a product – feeds actionable data into analytics engines and future business decisions.
The Jasper Platform centers around the Jasper Control Center, which is the consumer facing end of the business. It allows the user to set automated monitoring criteria which can trigger alerts, integrate the Control Center with their own systems via API, and study the data collected by the deployed devices – both historically and in real time. Jasper stresses the speed benefits of the platform, which allows quick changes and decisions to be made.
Jasper says its platform is “a turnkey solution for Telecom Italia’s customers, easily configured to meet specialized needs of companies in any industry. The cloud-based Jasper Platform is the only one purpose-built to enable companies to launch, manage and monetize IoT businesses. Telecom Italia will be able to offer its customers real time visibility, control and other capabilities – like mobile service management, real time support diagnostics, billing and business automation – necessary to succeed and scale their connected business over time.”
“At Telecom Italia Digital Solutions we’re seeing huge thirst among the enterprise community to join the Internet of Things movement and to scale their deployments at will,” said Luigi Zabatta, executive director for M2M & IoT Services at TI Digital Solutions.