New Focus Group on the M2M Service Layer

The January meeting of the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) has established a new Focus Group on the M2M Service Layer. The group will study and evaluate the M2M landscape and the work currently being undertaken by regional and national standards development organizations with a view to identifying a common set of requirements.

The initial focus will be on the APIs and protocols to support e-health applications and services, and develop technical reports in these areas. The group is likely to establish three sub-working groups: “M2M use cases and service models,” “M2M service layer requirements” and “M2M APIs and protocols.” Strong collaboration with stakeholders such as Continua Health Alliance and World Health Organization (WHO) is foreseen. The Focus Group concept enables greater operational flexibility and, crucially, it allows non-ITU members and other interested organizations to participate.

The group is expected to carry out the following specific tasks:

• Research, collect and analyze the vertical market M2M service layer needs, initially focusing on e-health.
• Identify a minimum common set of M2M service layer requirements and capabilities, initially focusing on e-health applications and services.
• Study APIs and relevant protocols that satisfy the above requirements and capabilities to support the communications between the M2M applications and the telecom networks.
• Develop technical reports to address the identified gaps and propose future standardization work for ITU-T developments on M2M.
• Support global harmonization and consolidation by inputting its final deliverables to the parent Study Group and other relevant Study Groups as appropriate.

These terms of reference are subject to consultation of the next four weeks. The Focus Group will work closely with all ITU-T Study Groups, especially Study Groups 13 and 16, with the other ITU sectors (ITU-R, ITU-D) and with other relevant UN agencies, SDOs, forums/consortia, regulators, policy makers, industry and academia. Within the ITU, the group will work particularly closely with the Internet of Things Global Standards Initiative.

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