Sprint is one of the four major carriers in the United States, along with Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T. As of today, Sprint is looking to compete with AT&T on M2M services and has announced the launch of their improved M2M offering. M2M stands for Machine to Machine and aims to provide communication links between both wired and wireless devices of the same type, Sprint, in this case will focus on wireless. Machine to Machine communications is considered one of the main components of the Internet of Things, with this known, Sprint will be making it possible for users to manage most connected devices. This will be achieved through a new version of Sprint’s own portal, Command Center 2.0.
Sprint launched the original Command Center four years ago, in order to let its customers (mostly other businesses) customize their experience by managing M2M devices. The Command Center allows control over billing, provisioning and the possibility of developing their own solutions to M2M communications. According to Sprint, the upcoming Command Center 2.0 will be simpler to use and more functional, by enabling with a simple touch, provisioning to a great number of connected devices (up to over a thousand). The new Command Center 2.0 portal will be launching in over 200 countries around the world. Other features of the updated service will include an improved reporting capacity, showing users exactly how their connected devices are communicating among themselves. Sprint’s latest service will be available for devices running on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee, but will not be limited to them as the carrier will offer M2M support for CDMA, GSM,1xRTT, UMTS, and LTE with a new universal SIM card.
AT&T is the leading carrier in the United States who offers a universal SIM card for M2M solutions, the company has been using this kind of technology since 2012 and has gathered over 20 million devices which are connected with M2M solutions. Sprint has connected around 6.2 million devices via M2M in comparison. Even though, their service has been around for a while and them, along with other carriers have made AT&T feel some pressure, Sprit has yet to achieve the incredibly high number of connected devices that AT&T has. Sprint hopes the latest improvements will help to change that.