Internet of Things (IoT) solutions depend on reliable cellular connectivity. While it may not be too damaging for some IoT deployments to lose connectivity, for others, an outage could spell disaster. Reliable connectivity is essential for those organizations where even brief network disruptions can have serious consequences.
Huge financial and reputational risks, and even safety or security issues, result from sudden outages or temporarily lost connectivity in markets and industries such as remote patient monitoring, first responders, payment systems, critical asset monitoring, cargo tracking, electric vehicle charging, alarm systems and offender monitoring.
Uninterrupted cellular connectivity ensures maximum uptime and business continuity for organizations deploying global fleets of connected critical assets. Any service disruption can compromise operations, making robust, always-on connectivity an absolute necessity.
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The Problems with Dual-SIM Fail-Over Solutions
Traditionally, mission-critical IoT applications have relied on dual-SIM fail-over solutions to address coverage gaps. Such solutions are not ideal, as they are costly to deploy and maintain. Specifically, they usually involve multiple SIM cards in a single device in a fail-over configuration. This setup requires active monitoring of the signal quality and the physical switching of SIM cards, which can drive up costs and complexity.
When provisioning a SIM card, one must physically activate or insert the plastic SIM into an IoT device. For organizations with global, large-scale deployments where they must work with different connectivity service providers, this provisioning method becomes untenable. Imagine a company with connected alarm systems deployed across the globe. If, for whatever reason, this company needed to switch mobile network operators in a particular region, it would need to send technicians into the field to perform provisioning on potentially thousands of devices.
Moreover, businesses with global deployments must insert new SIMs into their IoT devices at the various manufacturing and commissioning stages, creating additional logistics and production overhead to maintain SIM stock-keeping units (SKUs) and proper testing. Having numerous SKUs can lead to increased storage costs and other complexities.
Why an eSIM Multiprofile Solution is Superior
Instead of relying on dual-SIM fail-over solutions to address coverage gaps and ensure always-on cellular communications, organizations should use an eSIM multiprofile solution based on the latest eSIM technology—namely, GSMA SGP.22 and SGP.32 SIM specifications. Businesses should also pair an eSIM multiprofile solution with a catalog of connectivity profiles, including a remote subscription management platform.
The combination of these solutions and technologies allows IoT devices to seamlessly and automatically switch profiles, empowering companies to achieve optimal global or local coverage without requiring multiple SIM cards or other expensive solutions. This seamless network switching ultimately provides the resilience, redundancy and flexibility needed for mission-critical IoT applications. Likewise, this method leverages vendor-agnostic remote eSIM provisioning standards, eliminating the costs and complexity of SIM-vendor-specific multi-IMSI solutions while future-proofing companies for later IoT eSIM standards.
Using a catalog of connectivity profiles in tandem with the latest GSMA specifications also means IoT devices in the field can download profiles remotely. In other words, businesses won’t need to switch traditional SIM cards, saving time and costs associated with manual SIM swaps. Instead, organizations can easily update connectivity profiles to optimize network coverage, performance and costs without physically handling their devices.
Additional Benefits: Single-SKU Efficiency and Avoiding Coverage Constraints
For original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and service providers, a significant benefit of utilizing an eSIM multiprofile solution based on GSMA specifications with a catalog of connectivity profiles and a remote subscription management platform is that they can implement single-SKU offerings. Such offerings will streamline global deployments and reduce inventory costs.
Furthermore, this approach will allow OEMs and service providers to free end users from carrier coverage limitations in their global deployments. As a result, end users won’t need to navigate individual carrier coverage constraints, enabling them to overcome permanent roaming restrictions and cost fluctuation risks, such as access fees and high roaming charges.
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What Constitutes an Ideal Provider?
Ensuring always-on, outage-resilient cellular coverage for mission-critical global deployments requires a multifaceted solution. Organizations in markets and industries that require the utmost reliability must partner with an end-to-end solution provider that offers all requisite elements, i.e., an eSIM multiprofile solution based on GSMA specifications, connectivity profiles and a remote subscription management platform.
Additionally, the ideal provider should have a secure mobile core network, complete with connectivity and device management services. For businesses with global mission-critical applications, a best-in-breed provider should also have extensive coverage across a multitude of countries. Lastly, companies should prioritize providers that have experienced engineering and support services.
