Vodafone to provide M2M service for JCB equipment in India

Vodafone India's enterprise division today said it has tied up with construction equipment maker JCB India to provide remote monitoring services of the machines, also known as machine-to-machine (M2M) services and said it eyeing more such engagement in healthcare and automobile sector in India.

As part of the collaboration, Vodafone will provide M2M solution to power JCB's Livelink, a telematics system that allows remote monitoring of its construction equipment and provides information on service, operation and security of the equipment. Vodafone SIM and network will be used to send and receive information from the equipment machines.

By using the services, JCB equipment users can monitor working versus idle time, track location of the machine, fuel usage and identify small problems before they cause unscheduled downtime, Nick Gliddon, director of Vodafone business services said.

Earlier this year, Vodafone had announced partnering with an Indian healthcare company to send information collected by blood glucose metering device to mobile phones of doctors and immediate relatives. The telecom operator said it sees great potential in internet of things and M2M market in India.

"M2M presents a huge opportunity in the highly competitive Indian market. We have the capability to maintain over 10 billion SIMs and are confident of growing business further, especially from segments like healthcare and automobiles", added Gliddon.

M2M or connected machines market provide huge opportunity for hardware makers, telecom operators and information technology (IT) services providers as customers need real-time information for planning.

For a construction equipment maker like JCB, the connected machine services has the potential to win more loyal customers as they need real-time support after the purchase of the vehicle.

"This has the potential to radically change the way we enable our customers to monitor their machines and also in the way we provide real time support to our customers."Vipin Sondhi, managing director and chief executive officer of JCB India Limited said.

The livelink platform of JCB collects and analyses data received from machines and sends them to the customers via text messages or email such as fuel requirement or malfunction in the machine. Customers can also track the status of machines on the livelink platform on JCB India website.