Bamboo Technology Group's M2M channel business is booming with a growing posse of reseller partners embracing its M2M proposition. M2M was first introduced to Bamboo's Total Partner Programme in October last year and since January 2016 the firm has witnessed 31% average month-on-month growth in connected M2M devices and 71% average month-on-month growth in data volume.
MD Lorrin White attributes much of this growth to a flexible pence-per-kilobyte wholesale data plan that has proved popular among firms with small data requirements and large organisations that wish to create their own bundles.
"Our M2M channel has been a resounding success in the short time since its launch," said White. "Despite being a relatively new technology for the channel the reaction from resellers at this early stage is encouraging.
"The barriers to wide scale M2M adoption have generally been one of two things - customers either struggling to conceive where M2M can deliver its own unique value in place of a regular cellular or fixed line connection, or resellers unconvinced about the long-term profitability and viability of M2M even at a small scale. We believe we have been able to address both of these concerns with our M2M proposition."
Bamboo can also work with partners and customers to develop bespoke M2M packages and pricing structures that ensure the viability of new M2M product lines before a customer takes them to market.
"By giving our partners direct access to our pre-sales team, they have been able to demonstrate the real world potential of the technology to their customers," added White.
"As a result, we have seen new use cases as varied as mobile CCTV, temporary office Internet and even solar and wind farm telematics, in addition to the more traditional use cases in fleet and asset tracking for example."
According to White, offering M2M SIMs on a wholesale pence-per-kilobyte basis has significantly lowered the entrance fee for this market. "This has given our partners the flexibility to build their own bundles so they can succeed with customers of all sizes, from heavy data users to those that use very little data at all," she said.
"This wouldn't have been possible if we had enforced high volume data packages or fixed tariffs. Helping resellers to identify and understand the opportunity has been key. Whereas previously they may have walked away from a potential deal because they couldn't see how to make it viable, we now have the flexibility in the tariffs to meet even the most specific of requirements and deliver growth for all."
Bamboo's M2M proposition is powered by Telefónica, a long standing partner. Bernie McPhillips, Head of M2M Authorised Distributor Channel at Telefónica UK, added: "Bamboo's innovation in the M2M sector and strong track record within the mobile arena is clearly resonating with the channel."
Bamboo's M2M service for resellers also includes monitoring and control features via the Cisco Jasper IoT services platform; all SIMs deliver connectivity across multiple networks globally under one bill (due to 600 network roaming agreements worldwide, including 4G coverage in 26 countries); IPSec VPN for advanced network integration; and flexible deployment options such as the provision of test-ready SIMS.