ITU establishes focus group on machine-to-machine service layer

The International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group has established a new Focus Group on Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Service Layer.

The M2M refers to the ability of a machine to sense and measure certain variables, and communicate this information to other machines in a network. The technologies have applications in a number of industries – e-health, fleet management, sales and payment, security and surveillance, intelligent transport systems (ITS) etc.

In a statement copied to ghanabusinessnews.com, the ITU said January 17, 2012 that “the group will study and evaluate the M2M landscape and M2M work currently being undertaken by regional and national standards development organizations (SDOs), with a view to identifying a common set of requirements.”

The Focus Group will initially focus on the APIs and protocols to support e-health applications and services, and develop technical reports in these areas, the UN agency indicated.

The group will establish three sub-working groups – “M2M use cases and service models”, “M2M service layer requirements” and “M2M APIs and protocols.”

By Ekow Quandzie