UK M2M vendor Neul has announced a new special interest group that it hopes will accelerate the adoption of Weightless, its proposed global standard for machine-to-machine communications over short to mid-range. Healthcare is one of the key markets considered for such services.

ARM, Cable & Wireless Worldwide and CSR, as well as Neul itself, have signed an SIG Promoter agreement laying out how the companies will back the new standard, which will operate in white space spectrum.

The aim is to complete the Weightless, which is a royalty-free open standard, by early next year.

The ambition is to create a standard that will meet a range of requirements including a chipset costing less than US$2, an operational range up to 10 kilometres and a battery life of ten years.

In addition to healthcare, other potential M2M applications that might benefit from standardisation include smart grids, asset tracking, sensors and smart cities.