More than 190 countries that are members of global industry body the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecommunication Standardisation Sector (ITU-T) have approved the OneM2M specifications as an ITU standard, simplifying the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem lifecycle by minimising development, deployment and maintenance costs.

Through this, the ITU-T has added IoT security capabilities to its recommendations of the machine-to-machine (M2M) common service layer, built on middleware concepts and standardised by global standards initiative OneM2M.

OneM2M is an open set of specifications that defines a common set of horizontal IoT service functions to enable secure data exchange and information interoperability across different vertical sectors, service providers and use cases.

"The standardised application programming interfaces future-proof the IoT ecosystem by reducing costs and enable interworking with existing IoT technologies. OneM2M standards provide an interoperability testing framework and support a global certification programme by the Global Certification Forum for OneM2 M-based products," OneM2M said.

The approval happened over a multi-step process involving interactive discussions between ITU-T members and OneM2M experts.

Further, the ITU-T's Study Group 20 (SG20) IoT and smart cities- and communities-approved OneM2M's security specifications for IoT systems are part of the ITU-T Y.4500.3 series, making the entire suite of OneM2M specifications available for use nationally by ITU-T member States.

“Security-related capabilities are an essential and complementary component in all IoT systems. OneM2M treats security as a common service function that can be applied in the same way across many applications in different verticals,” said Deutsche Telekom Technology Innovation lead and OneM2M Technical plenary chairperson Roland Hechwartner.

“OneM2M also emphasises the use of open standards so that service providers can control all entities and services in their deployments without relying on a single company or proprietary set of technologies,” he noted.

Through SG20, ITU-T participants provide commonly agreed guidance for implementing IoT and its applications, as well as smart cities and communities, noted British Telecom IoT and ecosystem architecture solutions manager and ITU-T WP1/20 vice chairperson Rana Kamill, who led OneM2M’s collaboration with the ITU-T.