April 15, 2010 - According to ABI Research, "In 2010, only about 40,000 4G machine-to-machine (M2M) cellular modules will ship. All will be WiMAX-based. In contrast, ABI Research estimates that in 2015, more than 12.6 million of the devices – including LTE-compatible models – will ship worldwide".

M2M practice director Sam Lucero says that, the key word is ‘usually’: “A few M2M applications do require lots of bandwidth and high throughput, and it is those applications – telematics (distributing multimedia content to vehicles) fixed wireless terminals (distributing a broadband connection), and industrial PDAs – that will benefit from 4G networks’ capabilities.

 â€œ4G offers several benefits for M2M,” says Lucero. “The first, of course, is sheer bandwidth. 4G networks are also more spectrally efficient than 3G. Finally, there is the question of future-proofing: 4G networks are going to be around for quite a long time.”

ABI Research’s “M2M Market Forecasts” database tracks the M2M market on the basis of wireless WAN embedded modules and product revenue, as well as wireless WAN active connections and service revenue.

source: ABI Research