By Gemma Simpson
Tuesday, January 23 2007 09:53 AM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,61983921,00.htm

The market for wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies, such as radio frequency identification (RFID), is set for a boom-time with revenues expected to quadruple to US$40.8 billion come 2011, analysts predict.

Wireless M2M--where data is shared between devices over a wireless network without human interaction--will see revenues more than double in the next three years, from US$11.6 billion in 2006 to US$25.3 billion in 2009, according to analyst house Juniper research.

To date, all M2M communications, whether wireless or wired, have been notorious for convoluted business models, needing long-term investment and being associated with high costs, according to the Juniper report Wireless Telematics and Machine to Machine: Entering the Growth Phrase, 2006-2011.

Therese Cory, report author at Juniper Research, said the business case for wireless telemetry will become easier as more companies bite the bullet and provide success stories for others to learn from.

RFID is one of the best examples of M2M tech--using tiny chips to transit data through antenna which is picked up by devices that read the information in a similar way to a barcode.

Gemma Simpson of Silicon.com reported from London.