KOLKATA: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai ) has for a second time extended the deadlines for stakeholder comments and counter comments on its discussion paper on delicensing some 4G airwaves for machine-to-machine or ‘ M2M ’ communications, following requests from the industry.The telecom regulator has now sought comments on the consultation paper by January 12, 2017, and counter-comments by January 19. It had originally sought such submissions by November 15 and November 29 respectively, and had initially extended the deadlines to December 6 and December 14 on industry request.“Industry associations have sought further extension and the Authority has also written to all state governments/union territories and various central ministries seeking inputs on sectors likely to get impacted by deployment of M2M devices,” Trai said in an official statement Monday. Such inputs, it added, would be valuable in forming a comprehensive recommendation by the Authority.M2M technologies, typically, allow wired and wireless devices to talk to each other using sensors, and such applications can be deployed in new age infrastructure projects such as smart cities, smart grids, smart heath and smart transportation. M2M technologies are reportedly expected to also support the Centre's Rs 7,000-crore Smart City project.Industry experts, however, said data privacy is a key issue in the M2M scenario since information would be shared and used with third-party vendors. Accordingly, they hope the government will address the issue while formulating the M2M roadmap.

Source: Economic Times December 05, 2016 10:39 UTC