Global IoT Connectivity with eSIM or Traditional SIM

The customer had an IOT strategy within his products and as he sold his goods globally, the question arised, how difficult it will be to negotiate with every local network carrier to get connectivity in each single country. The customer had no idea about cellular connectivity, network carriers, etc. and had no interest in negotiating with carriers or resources.

The world of cellular connectivity is difficult to grasp for somebody with no previous experience and the arrangements with Telecom carriers have high entry barriers (commitments are necessary; a customer needs to know precisely their requirements,…).

The used SIM is technically known as eUICC and is an unlocked SIM card. It enables the customer to swap between pre-negotiated carrier services “over-the-air” without the need to physically change the SIM card. An intuitive SIM management platform that is developed in-house is an easy-to-use dashboard to manage all the SIMs with one user interface and API. In case of an issue, the vendor offers personalized support. All connectivity solutions are available (2G, 3G, 4G, NB-IoT & LTE-M), so the customer got versatility in carrier options for its global deployments. As a result, the client has unlocked a feasible solution for scaling globally. Everything about cellular connectivity is controlled from one point.

• Hardware setup questions are common, but the solution provider offered consulting
• Difficulties using the self-service platform (the solution provider appoints account managers who support with all the questions about the platform)
• Knowledge gap (different resources available and shared)

• They tried using local carrier SIM cards, and it worked well in a single market. Still, massive headaches started when they started to expand globally, and there was a need to integrate several networks in multiple countries.
• They also looked into other technologies (LoRa, Sigfox) that are not fully certified.
• They tried a global connectivity provider, but they had complicated pricing terms or non-understandable offerings.

• Lack of time 
• Needs to be able to integrate connectivity management to their ecosystem/platform
• Missing competence in cellular hardware
• Needs to focus on primary business instead of connectivity that's supporting the primary business
• No Knowledge about eSIM technology

• Simplicity (flexibility) in pricing, deployment
• Excellent (personalized) support
• Platform integration (API) to manage the SIM cards (connectivity)
• Self-service option
• Long-term trustworthy partner

• Time and financial resources saved by getting it right with the first iteration
• The self-service platform helps save on monthly costs (minimum 0.1 EUR saved per device per month)

• Figuring out their scope of the project (countries, MB consumption)
• Understanding the use case from the supplier side
• Specifying requirements customer-supplier 
• Pricing from supplier 
• Testing SIM cards (customer-supplier)
• Commercial agreements reached

No technical skills required. The client is getting consulting if hardware questions around deployments arise. The client is still responsible for his own IoT product/project but doesn't need to know about the connectivity hardware topic. 

• Testing the platform with the supplier connectivity 
• Testing the hardware with the supplier SIMs

Technical facts

• Standard SIM card - works with all devices using the standard 
• eSIM cards - cellular modem needs to support eSIM/BIP commands

Integrations & APIs

• Full Restful API is available for SIM management 
• Other integrations per request of the client

Where is the data stored?

The platform is hosted on Amazon cloud servers in the EU.