China Flexes M2M Muscles in Connected Transportation

China is the global economic juggernaut for the foreseeable future, and anyone who says differently is selling something. Not to rest on their gigantic laurels, Chinese IoT and M2M technology firms are making sure that the country stays on top.

M2M Evolution saw Chinese leadership coming in 2014, when we said that the country would pave the way toward smart cities and M2M connectivity, and that has borne out with a recent report, calling for another 32 percent CAGR growth rate between now and 2019.

It looks like part of that growth will come in the form of connected transportation initiatives. The advantages of M2M-enabled transportation, or the so-called Internet of Vehicles (IoV), are many and varied, and in hyper-urban settings like China’s cities, those advantages are clear. At least to the developers in China.

Beyond the developers who are working to make connected vehicles a thing of the present, Chinese telecoms are fast at work at making their 4G networks ready to take on the extra load, according to an April 6 report by Shanghai's National Business Daily.

The largest telecom in China, China Mobile, has set a goal of adding half a million IoV users in 2015, and will as soon as May release a suite of 4G IoV products, the company said. Meanwhile, another one of China’s telecoms last year signed an agreement with Tesla for and IoV development program, and is soon expected to announce the first initiatives of that new venture. The third of China’s top three, China Telecom, has its own IoT skunkworks in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, and at that development base of operations has made connected transportation a key mission, and first line of exploration.

The rest of the world’s nations and economies had better take note, if any of them expect to be in China’s league at the end of the decade.