RACO Wireless, a machine-to-machine (M2M) provider for T-Mobile USA, Inc., today announced that Apriva, a provider of end-to-end wireless transactions and secure information solutions, will utilise RACO Wireless to support Apriva’s Point of Sale (POS) customers that use 2G payment terminals.
Apriva will begin migrating select customers affected by the retirement of existing 2G networks in the next few weeks. With much of the talk in the wireless industry about 4G and LTE networks, many carriers are retiring their 2G networks and focusing their energies on 4G and beyond. This puts Apriva and the majority of M2M applications today in a tough bind as their existing M2M solutions are reliant upon 2G connectivity. Fortunately for Apriva and 2G M2M application developers, T-Mobile has no plans to shut down their 2G network. The RACO Wireless/T-Mobile 2G network will provide reliable service for Apriva’s customers with 2G POS devices for the foreseeable future.
“With America’s largest 4G network, T-Mobile has the capability to deliver the coverage, speed and growing bandwidth needed for high-end 3D video systems or data-intensive applications. However, many of today’s M2M applications, like those from Apriva, do not yet require this kind of bandwidth,” said Jeremy Korst, vice president of M2M and MVNO at T-Mobile. “T-Mobile acknowledges this need in the marketplace. Therefore, we intend to continue to support our 2G and 3G networks for the foreseeable future.”
In further news released today, RACO Wireless have also announced a partnership with Enterprise Mobile, a business unit of Intermec Technologies (NYSE: IN) and a provider of outsourced lifecycle and professional mobility services, to allow M2M application providers to remove unnecessary complexity out of the M2M distribution chain through outsourced product deployment, management and fulfillment.
“Today’s announcement takes the complexity out of the M2M distribution equation for our customers, who can now fully or partially outsource their product management and fulfillment.” said John Horn, president of RACO Wireless. “Further, with this launch, RACO Wireless customers have one more resource in their arsenal as they launch and support their M2M solutions – from PR/marketing to 24/7 managed call center support.”
“To meet the promise that M2M holds, the industry requires an ecosystem that supports always-on connectivity, enables companies to look for new business models and provides a simple and seamless customer experience – from onboarding through deployment and support,” said Jeremy Korst, vice president of wholesale (MVNO/M2M) at T-Mobile USA. “With the launch of more customer support capabilities, our partner RACO Wireless demonstrates how T-Mobile’s unique business model does just that.”
Enterprise Mobile currently manages more than 200,000 M2M devices and has executed mobility projects for a wide range of industries, including retail, transportation, manufacturing, energy, financial services, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals and the government.
