For the last year or so, many M2M service providers have been pushing global reach and extreme connectedness (everything that can be connected will... etc). But for many M2M users (and potential M2M users) the issue is not so much scope and scale but rather the opposite: how do you secure and control data and devices (and demonstrate that you have)?

It's a concern that Telefónica Digital has taken up with a view to making it a key differentiator for its M2M service. It has just announced a Web-based M2M platform with a stress on localisation rather than globalisation.

Smart M2M is an inhouse development which does all the usual things: M2M network diagnostics, real time monitoring, tracking traffic volumes and so on.

But Telefónica Digital has also done a lot of work to localize the software and the way the resulting service will operate. There is local language support of course, but also local server hosting and an enhanced ability to 'confine' data to a specific territory to ensure (and demonstrate) compliance with national regulations on data privacy and security.

Telefónica Digital is also highlighting fraud detection and the ability to traffic cap and restrict access between specific devices.