New M2M SIM from Vodacom Business

MOBILE

Vodacom Business in South Africa has unveiled a new Machine to Machine (M2M) SIM, that can be soldered onto a circuit board and used for a variety of industries.

M2M is reported to be a fast-growing field, with possible uses in a range of industries.

The SIMs are highly durable and long-lasting, resistant to temperature extremes, and because an M2M SIM is thin and soldered onto a circuit board when it is being printed, it cannot be removed.

M2M has uses from remote controlling of vending machines and utility meters, to managing outdoor electronic billboards via the internet.
Vodacom Business’ s new M2M VQFN-8 SIM is a SIM card that is packaged in a standard Very ThinQuad Flat Narrow 8 pin (VQFN-8) semiconductor chip.

This SIM is soldered onto the customer's printed circuit board when their product is being manufactured, thus eliminating removal and fraud, says Vodacom.

It also has a long lifespan operating system which ensures 500 000 read/write cycles to its EEPROM memory (vs 100 000 of 2FF SIM plastic SIM cards) to ensure it will not fail in the field; soldering makes it vibration resistant in highly mobile applications and rough terrain; and has an extended operating temperature range so it can operate in harsh environments.

The SIM can be used in a variety of applications such as:
•       Monitoring and Control
•       Commercial applications
•       Fleet and Asset Management
•       Security and Surveillance
•       Human Touch / Consumer applications
•       Metering

M2M lays the foundation of the concepts, services and offering that will be delivered to our local markets by Vodacom Business, says Gabi Strijp, Executive Head Enterprise Mobility Solutions at Vodacom Business. We see M2M as an emerging market that will bring a wide range of solutions to enterprises, especially the public sector.

M2M is the remote wireless data interchange between two or more devices, or a central server, without direct relationship with an end customer, in order to support a specific business process or product.

Vodacom Business sees the customer as being an enterprise and not a consumer. M2M is in most cases a business to business (B2B) offering but is starting to appear in B2C consumer electronic applications such as eReaders and in future, connected gaming devices. In the B2B space, M2M can be defined a business process efficiency tool which automates previous human intervention.

The M2M market is growing significantly in both South Africa as well as international markets as it offers enterprises the ability to significantly reduce costs, provide managed services, and improved service delivery and efficiency.

The VQFN-8 SIM allows our customers to continue to innovate in the M2M market by producing smaller, more secure and robust devices for the variety of industries which they serve, says Strijp.