News and Reviews....
M2M Emerges ....... August 2005
Robert Lieto
The Next Evolution of the Internet Beckons. M2M (Machine to Machine) will be the next big communication blitz in the future. It is where your Air Conditioner, Entertainment System, Temperature Sensors, Security and much more communicate to multiple location controllers as well to each other. The M2M technology combines communications, computing, software, sensors and power technology to enable remote human and machine interaction with physical, chemical, and biological systems and processes.
Examples include sensing of temperature, light, pressure, gasses and other physical characteristics to monitor life, health, property, security and where needed employee efficiency. Location services also can be implemented for humans, animals, vehicles and capital equipment via GPS, RFID and other technologies. Mesh sensor networks will connect to the Internet to gather, analyze and interpret data for various telemetry applications on a scale never predicted.
Some projections say that by 2010, there will be 10,000 devices connected to the internet for every person now online. A spokesperson at the recent Embedded Systems Conference expects 14 billion intelligent connected devices within five (5) years.
Can the Internet handle this deluge? The answer is YES. It must actually scale up to accommodate the massive new load. The core of the Internet is primarily 2.5-Gbits/s fiber right now. That will gradually upgrade to 10 Gbilt/s. The hardware is here now, but expensive. The ability to go to 40 Gbits/s already exists, more costly. A rate of 100 Gbits/s is the ultimate target, which will be achievable in time. Another technology called wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) with multiple "Colors" of light on a fiber at the same time has been perfected. This will push overall data rates to the terabit(10 to 12th power) and eventually petabit (10 to 15th power) levels.
And so you see that more speed, power, complexity and devices will all contribute to an interconnected world like we have never imagined prior.
Comment ..... We are in a very exciting and rapidly changing world in communications. Speeds are getting greater, geometries and overall size of electronic systems smaller. I understand how older generations get overwhelmed, while newer ones grow within and mold into new technologies like fitting new shoes. The faster we go, the more speed we seem to use up and discard like yesterdays old hat. Life Goes on.
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