Controls offer a choice of phone technologies

The US controls manufacturer Opto 22 has announced tie-ups with two wireless communications specialists - Sony Ericsson and Kyocera - to offer wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communications for remote monitoring, control and data acquisition applications.

Under the first deal, Opto 22 will integrate Sony Ericsson`s GT48 GSM/GPRS control terminal with its OptoGSM I/O hardware. It says that the result will be an inexpensive, off-the shelf technology for monitoring, controlling, and acquiring data from machines and systems. It will be economic even for monitoring installations with low I/O counts.

Opto 22 says that unlike most other wireless telemetry modules, radios and modems, which merely provide a means for communicating via cellular networks, the GT48 is an intelligent device that can be configured to perform control and alarming functions independently, using a built-in scripting engine. It will allow users to add monitoring, messaging and local control functions, as needed.

The second deal, with the Kyocera Wireless Corp, has resulted in the integration of Kyocera`s 200 telemetry module with Opto 22`s SNAP I/O hardware (shown above). This will allow the hardware to communicate via CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), the most widely used cellular network technology in North America.

According to the analyst Gartner, there will be 100-160m M2M connections worldwide working over mobile phone networks by 2007.