Globe, 10 other Asian countries form alliance

MANILA, Philippines - A total of 11 mobile operators in Asia Pacific with a subscriber base of 570 million including Ayala-led Globe Telecom Inc. are set to form today an alliance that would provide seamless delivery of machine-to-machine (M2M) services in the region.

The Bridge M2M Alliance would offer a ‘one-stop-shop’ experience for M2M deployment across the Asia Pacific region and effectively becoming a center of excellence for M2M services and solutions to attract partnerships and provide customers with an end-to-end M2M regional capability.

The partnership would also eliminate the complexity of dealing with multiple operators by offering seamless delivery of regional M2M services across geographical borders and at the same time improve customers’ service experience through enhanced interoperability, service levels and customer support.

Alessandro Adriani, chief executive officer of Bridge Alliance, said the evolution of Bridge Alliance in the M2M business is an indication of the commitment from the 11 operators to overcome challenges for the success of customers’ businesses.

“Asia is made up of highly varied economies, uneven technological development and diversified regulatory requirements. As a result, multinational businesses find it extremely difficult to navigate the intricacies of the region and to fully capitalize on economies of scale,” Adriani said.

Aside from Globe, members of the alliance include Airtel (India), AIS (Thailand), CSL (Hong Kong), Maxis (Malaysia), MobiFone (Vietnam), Optus (Australia), SingTel (Singapore), SK Telecom (South Korea), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan), and Telkomsel (Indonesia).

M2M technology functions by connecting communication hardware to a physical asset: anything from a delivery truck, service vehicle, motorcycle, boat, production machine, an ATM terminal, freezer, elevator, data center, vault and so on.