The ongoing GSMA Asia summit witnessed forging of ties between Huawei, the GSMA and leading global operators towards addressing the needs of the embedded mobile devices market.

As an immediate measure, applications which will help the consumer electronics, clean energy, healthcare, transport and utilities sectors will be made available.

Named the embedded mobile initiative, the operators taking part in the alliance include KTF, Rogers Wireless, Smart, Softbank, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telstra and Vodafone.

“Our ultimate goal is that every machine, device, object will have broadband mobile connectivity. Everything around us will be using mobile networks to exchange information with each other and with the Internet,” said Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board of the GSMA. “There are many possible applications: Connected cameras could automatically upload photos to Web sites, cars could regularly send detailed performance information to mechanics, while sensors could transmit emissions data direct to computer systems monitoring the environment.” 

The initiative will aim to usher in better economies of scale so as to result in cheaper 3G mobile devices and also result in incorporating 3G modules which can be embedded in cars, cameras, health monitoring devices, environmental sensors, energy meters and many other machines.

An immediate priority of the alliance will be to develop a common application programming interface (API) enabling consumer goods manufacturers to make their products compatible with different 3G mobile networks.

“We are very glad to work with the GSMA to develop the new commercial applications for mobile broadband. Based on our great success with mobile broadband terminals, we have no doubt that this collaboration will drive further development of the industry,” said Edward Chen, CEO of Huawei Communication Technologies. “Huawei has shipped more than 20 million sets of mobile broadband terminals and will continue to play an important role in the future products and solutions for the module market.”