Fourteen mobile operators across Asia-Pacific have sealed a strategic partnership to form the largest Internet of Things (IoT) community in the region.
Members of the newly launched GSMA APAC IoT Partnership Program include Celcom and Maxis (Malaysia), Dialog (Sri Lanka), DTAC (Thailand), M1 and Singtel (Singapore), Ncell (Nepal), Optus (Australia), Robi (Bangladesh), Smart (Cambodia), True Corporation (Thailand), XL and Smartgren (Indonesia), and Xpand (Thailand).
The group currently has around 500 partners including mobile operators, consultants, developers, manufacturers, system integrators and vertical solution providers.
This is expected to grow to over 2,000 partners by 2020.
Asia-Pacific is the largest IoT market in the world, with 11 billion connections expected by 2025, representing a revenue opportunity of $386 billion, according to GSMA, the trade body that represents the interests of mobile network operators worldwide.
“The IoT is growing rapidly across the Asia Pacific region, with mobile operators working with their partners and the wider ecosystem to drive this expansion,” affirmed Julian Gorman, Head of Asia Pacific, GSMA, in a news release.
He said the program will support the development of the IoT by creating a cross-regional IoT community to facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing, as well as creating opportunities that benefit both the supply chain and their customers.
A key focus of the program is to set up the IoT Labs across the region and to create a platform for media awareness of IoT innovation and leadership by the operators.
“The Labs are a key requirement for collaboration and encourage the joint development of new use cases, services, and applications, and enable IoT innovations to be effectively deployed,” the GSMA said.
All operators in the program have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to ensure that the coordination and output among the IoT Labs is consistent with IoT standards regionally and globally.
Participating operators have also committed to develop new initiatives and share best practices to accelerate the deployment of innovative IoT use cases that will improve the lives of over 3 billion people across the Asia-Pacific region.
“Through this partnership, we hope to tap into the GSMA’s best practices and expertise in exploring and accelerating the many possibilities the IoT presents our customers in the Malaysian marketplace,” said Paul McManus, Head of Enterprise, Maxis.
Indonesia’s Smartfren believes that it could introduce IoT soon and be able to contribute towards Indonesia’s economic growth, according to Shurish Subbramaniam, Chief Technology Officer, PT Smartfren Telecom Tbk.
“This is in-line with what Smartfren always inspires to do; to enable and educate society in utilizing 4G LTE Advanced technology, for the advancement of society in particular, and Indonesia in general,” he said.
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