With cellular, the infrastructure is owned and managed by the cellular carriers, not the end-customer or product supplier. This means no upfront infrastructure costs and reduced support costs. Because cellular connectivity does not depend on end-user managed infrastructure (Wi-Fi, ZigBee, etc.), product suppliers do not have to provide ‘helpdesk’ support services for basic connectivity issues (e.g. “The user’s device won’t connect to the access point. The security settings are not working….”). Instead of deploying their own infrastructure, leverage one of the world’s largest communication infrastructures – the cellular network. Cellular module costs have fallen significantly in recent years. High-volume pricing for data-only modules is approaching sub-$10 for 2G GSM, sub-$20 for CDMA 1xRTT and sub-$30 for 3G UMTS. These price points are enabling a whole new class of devices and applications. Data costs have also fallen significantly. For connected machines that only need to report small amounts of data, connectivity costs can be <$1/month. A vending machines that reports daily inventory clearly doesn’t need the same costly data plan as a consumer streaming HD music videos.