Sprint Nextel forges M2M agreement with Orange Business Services
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Sprint Nextel forges M2M agreement with Orange Business Services

Sprint’s international roaming agreement with Orange Business Services, the enterprise arm of France Telecom-Orange, will enable it to offer global M2M connectivity to 180 countries.

The roaming agreement is designed to extend Sprint’s services to its multinational corporate customers, allowing it to offer international M2M connectivity outside the US.

Sprint’s main corporate customers expected to benefit from this deal include those in the automotive industry, smart grid and metering, healthcare, retail point-of-sale and security.

Under the deal, these businesses will have their global M2M connectivity requirements managed by a single, dedicated body. This should allow them to benefit from economies of scale, cost control and faster deployment when they are extending their business internationally.

Yijing Brentano, vice president of international wholesale at Sprint, stressed the need to support its customers in a global economy: “They expect their processing, monitoring, diagnostic and distribution applications to work seamlessly wherever their business takes them.”

Orange Business Services will be servicing Sprint through its International M2M Center, based in Brussels. Its global network provides IP access in 220 countries and supports over 2.5 million active M2M connections.

“The choice of Orange by Sprint, a major telecommunications carrier, is a great recognition of our unmatched M2M quality of services and global footprint,” said Rudolphe Fruges, VP, internet of things and M2M for France Telecom-Orange.

The international M2M market is growing rapidly. In 2012, there will be over 106 million M2M connections outside the US, according to ABI Research; and this number is expected to grow to over 272 million by 2016.

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