Machine-to-Machine (M2M) refers to data communications between machines. M2M is most commonly translated to Machine-to-Machine but has sometimes been referred to as Man-to-Machine, Machine-to-Man, Machine-to-Mobile, and Mobile-to-Machine. Among mobile telephone service providers, M2M means Mobile-to-Mobile, and is used to describe calls that do not involve land lines.
A typical M2M system may include a device or group of devices capable of replying to requests for data contained within those devices or capable of transmitting data contained within those device autonomously. Additionally, a typical M2M system may include a communications link to connect the device or group of devices to a computer server or another device such as an Ethernet, telephony, or wireless device such as a wireless cellular or internet network. In instances of using a cellular network, a connected device platform may be included to manage communications such as service activations, provisioning, usage controls, fraud management, and cost management. Additionally, a typical M2M system may include a software agent, process, or interface by which the data can be analyzed, reported, and/or acted upon. Also, a typical M2M system may include instructions for providing instructions for the device or groups of devices.
Various M2M systems are task-specific as they are configured for use with a specific device or small subgroup of devices. M2M systems may be employed in a variety of applications including, but not limited to, enterprise infrastructure management, data centers, monitoring in the energy industry, manufacturing, facility management, transportation, healthcare, insurance, fleet management, time and attendance applications, sensor networks, vending machines, building and home automation systems, security systems, and unified platforms.
Subscriber identification module (SIM) technology may be used to securely store data such as the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) used to identify a subscriber on mobile telephony devices, such as mobile phones and computers. Multiple SIM cards may be used in combination on a single device to accomplish specific service functions over a wireless communications link. In these scenarios, a second SIM card is needed to provide processor power to accomplish a particular service using a mobile phone and a dedicated server to provide extensions of service between the mobile phone user and external servers.
In another application of SIM technology, AT commands are encapsulated within an existing SIM Application Toolkit dialog in order to use a telemetry module (i.e., a modem) as a pass-through in order to control externally connected devices such as a display, keypad, or similar phone like function. This system uses manufacturer specific commands available only on a particular manufacturer's module; however, the system requires an externally connecting computing device to interpret these commands and respond with the intended control. This pass-through technique only uses the modem as the pass-through of SIM generated control commands passed to external equipment. The SIM interface is connected to this modem and not directly to the controlled machine. This requires that the system contains a SIM, a telemetry module, and a processing unit in order to provide control of an externally controlled device.
In the above-described applications of SIM technology, SIM or SMART SIM are used as the logic processing unit which communicates with devices connected to a telemetry modem and make use of the SIM's processing power to control the operation of a wireless remote device. These devices may interface to an external server or a subsequently linked device such as a man-machine device including a keypad or display using the extensions of published functions as provided by the SIM Application Toolkit, however, these techniques require any subsequently linked device to contain another processor for interpreting AT commands or the like to perform a man-machine control functions. Additionally, the processor program resident on the SIM is specifically used for one particular type of modem which supports the passing of commands through the modem to the other subsequently connected devices. These techniques require other connected devices to process the commands to accomplish machine control and are not effective to improve system cost, size, and power drain. Therefore, it is desired to provide improvements to SIM-based systems for controlling machine devices.