Author: Stephane Quetglas

2.4 billion smartphone connections are set to use eSIMs by 2025. eSIMS were one of the hot topics at this year’s Mobile World Congress, and we’ve discussed its’ potential a great length on this blog.

Alongside the benefits for consumers, eSIMs present a huge opportunity for massive IOT deployments – providing an efficient means for IoT organisations to achieve resilient global connectivity while streamlining device manufacturing and simplifying deployments.

As this adoption continues to grow, having a clear strategy will be vital to capitalise and make best use of the new opportunities that this technology presents.

Earlier this year, Stephane Quetglas, Director of Marketing for Embedded Products here at Thales, sat down with George Malim, the managing editor of IOT Now, to discuss in greater detail. In case you missed it, you can find highlights from the interview below.

George Malim: Do you think it’s fair to blame cellular connectivity for the delayed deployment of massive IoT?

Stephane Quetglas: Cellular introduces significant differences in comparison to other connectivity technologies; that can hold back some players but in reality there is great potential. There are multiple aspects to cellular adoption and different organisations experience these in different ways. Companies that are used to Wi-Fi, for example, think it is difficult to embrace cellular connectivity because it is new to them. Others find the need to have a subscription with a mobile network operator and having to have a service contract an obstruction. Even those that are comfortable with both these aspects still need to insert a physical SIM into a device that has been manufactured elsewhere and the cost of doing this locally can make IoT use cases unviable.

A solution to this problem is roaming so a global SIM can be inserted at the place of manufacture and the device can then roam when it is deployed. Roaming works for consumers when they travel but it’s often expensive and this is a problem for IoT because the cost can be too high for a given use case.

Is cellular difficult for IoT deployments because it was designed for consumer communications?

No, in fact the technology itself is ideally suited for both IoT and consumer markets but in some new use cases such as the massive IoT market you have simpler devices. A smart water meter that you want to connect in order to remotely collect water consumption data is a far simpler device, costs less and runs for a long time, often ten years, on a battery without recharging. If you wanted to use this in the same way as a smartphone, you’d need to charge the battery every day and this is the reason why low power wide area (LPWA) networks exist and power saving technologies have been developed. Cellular connectivity plays its part here with LTE-M and NB-IoT designed specifically for IoT.

The cellular industry has also put forward embedded SIMs (eSIM) for the past ten years to bring flexibility to the marketplace. You can use an eSIM to avoid relying on roaming because it means you can change your subscription to a mobile operator network at any time. This technology is fantastic in terms of the flexibility it delivers to IoT. It was developed first for M2M applications and its most successful use case to date is in the automotive sector in terms of adoption. Another area of wide eSIM adoption is in consumer electronics with smartphones and smart watches.

The technologies used are similar but not exactly the same because the M2M eSIM has been designed to enable remote management of unattended devices while consumer applications rely on the end user to download the mobile subscription. Now, the next step for the industry is to use eSIM to specifically address massive IoT deployments.

So, what do the companies that deliver IoT services and applications really need?

If you look at the new enterprises that are introducing IoT – the IoT service providers – they need a system that is simple. Some companies have low experience of cellular technologies and are not able to invest a lot of time and money in understanding connectivity. They want to focus on their offerings and their business models, not to become cellular experts.

Flexibility is also important because companies want a choice in terms of connectivity. It could be, for example, that a company has connectivity provided by a certain mobile operator in France while, in the US, it uses another operator. From a device manufacturing process perspective, you would need to manufacture a device that is specific to France and a device that is specific to the US. You would then have to manage new product references and stock-keeping unit (SKU) numbers. That’s a challenge to achieve and it’s hard for companies to predict what volumes of which country-specific device they need. They could end up with huge demand in France but a warehouse full of devices configured for the US market. Having one SKU for all markets is far easier and cost-effective. It’s ideal to have a single SKU in order to simplify manufacturing and logistics.Ima

Companies need flexibility that allows them to pick the right connectivity and avoid roaming charges and be very lean in terms of manufacture.

This interview initially appeared in the Q2 edition of IOT Now.

Want to know more?

Or read the full interview with IoT Now where Stephane discusses the progression of eSIM adoption, and how the Thales Adaptive Connect solution allows Connectivity Service Providers to become true enablers of massive IoT deployments

The post Harnessing the Power of eSIM: How consumer eSIM technology can unlock massive IoT appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

2.4 billion smartphone connections are set to use eSIMs by 2025. eSIMS were one of the hot topics at this year’s Mobile World Congress, and we’ve discussed its’ potential a great length on this blog.

Alongside the benefits for consumers, eSIMs present a huge opportunity for massive IOT deployments – providing an efficient means for IoT organisations to achieve resilient global connectivity while streamlining device manufacturing and simplifying deployments.

As this adoption continues to grow, having a clear strategy will be vital to capitalise and make best use of the new opportunities that this technology presents.

Earlier this year, Stephane Quetglas, Director of Marketing for Embedded Products here at Thales, sat down with George Malim, the managing editor of IOT Now, to discuss in greater detail. In case you missed it, you can find highlights from the interview below.

George Malim: Do you think it’s fair to blame cellular connectivity for the delayed deployment of massive IoT?

Stephane Quetglas: Cellular introduces significant differences in comparison to other connectivity technologies; that can hold back some players but in reality there is great potential. There are multiple aspects to cellular adoption and different organisations experience these in different ways. Companies that are used to Wi-Fi, for example, think it is difficult to embrace cellular connectivity because it is new to them. Others find the need to have a subscription with a mobile network operator and having to have a service contract an obstruction. Even those that are comfortable with both these aspects still need to insert a physical SIM into a device that has been manufactured elsewhere and the cost of doing this locally can make IoT use cases unviable.

A solution to this problem is roaming so a global SIM can be inserted at the place of manufacture and the device can then roam when it is deployed. Roaming works for consumers when they travel but it’s often expensive and this is a problem for IoT because the cost can be too high for a given use case.

Is cellular difficult for IoT deployments because it was designed for consumer communications?

No, in fact the technology itself is ideally suited for both IoT and consumer markets but in some new use cases such as the massive IoT market you have simpler devices. A smart water meter that you want to connect in order to remotely collect water consumption data is a far simpler device, costs less and runs for a long time, often ten years, on a battery without recharging. If you wanted to use this in the same way as a smartphone, you’d need to charge the battery every day and this is the reason why low power wide area (LPWA) networks exist and power saving technologies have been developed. Cellular connectivity plays its part here with LTE-M and NB-IoT designed specifically for IoT.

The cellular industry has also put forward embedded SIMs (eSIM) for the past ten years to bring flexibility to the marketplace. You can use an eSIM to avoid relying on roaming because it means you can change your subscription to a mobile operator network at any time. This technology is fantastic in terms of the flexibility it delivers to IoT. It was developed first for M2M applications and its most successful use case to date is in the automotive sector in terms of adoption. Another area of wide eSIM adoption is in consumer electronics with smartphones and smart watches.

The technologies used are similar but not exactly the same because the M2M eSIM has been designed to enable remote management of unattended devices while consumer applications rely on the end user to download the mobile subscription. Now, the next step for the industry is to use eSIM to specifically address massive IoT deployments.

So, what do the companies that deliver IoT services and applications really need?

If you look at the new enterprises that are introducing IoT – the IoT service providers – they need a system that is simple. Some companies have low experience of cellular technologies and are not able to invest a lot of time and money in understanding connectivity. They want to focus on their offerings and their business models, not to become cellular experts.

Flexibility is also important because companies want a choice in terms of connectivity. It could be, for example, that a company has connectivity provided by a certain mobile operator in France while, in the US, it uses another operator. From a device manufacturing process perspective, you would need to manufacture a device that is specific to France and a device that is specific to the US. You would then have to manage new product references and stock-keeping unit (SKU) numbers. That’s a challenge to achieve and it’s hard for companies to predict what volumes of which country-specific device they need. They could end up with huge demand in France but a warehouse full of devices configured for the US market. Having one SKU for all markets is far easier and cost-effective. It’s ideal to have a single SKU in order to simplify manufacturing and logistics.Ima

Companies need flexibility that allows them to pick the right connectivity and avoid roaming charges and be very lean in terms of manufacture.

This interview initially appeared in the Q2 edition of IOT Now.

Want to know more?

Or read the full interview with IoT Now where Stephane discusses the progression of eSIM adoption, and how the Thales Adaptive Connect solution allows Connectivity Service Providers to become true enablers of massive IoT deployments

The post Harnessing the Power of eSIM: How consumer eSIM technology can unlock massive IoT appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

5G connectivity will power a world of new services. By 2025, it will account for 21% of the world’s mobile connections – and has the power to truly unlock the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT), connecting billions of objects.

5G unleashes a powerful combination of extraordinary speed, expanded bandwidth, low latency, and increased power efficiency perfect for connecting objects. It will make our cities smarter and our entertainment more immersive.

I spoke at the 5G IoT Summit with other industry experts to share the growth, challenges and opportunities of IoT in the 5G era. And, we met many players in and around our stand. Here’s a few of the things we saw.

The evolution of the Internet of Things 

The IoT revolution began with simple remote monitoring of things like first-generation smart refrigerators or machine telematics. In just a short space of time we’re now talking about connected cars, smart grids that span entire cities and countries, and telehealth. Forecasts suggest there could be as many as 75 billion IoT connected devices by 2025.

The potential market for 5G & IoT is massive and will probably see use cases that we haven’t even imagined today – I mean who would have thought that a connected cat litter tray existed (yes it does and we saw it at MWC!). Almost anything can now be connected and many of these new smart objects will be small, with no user interface and could be delivered anywhere around the world.

This raises three questions:

  1. How do we connect millions of discrete objects with no human intervention?
  2. How do we protect the device and data it transmits – and ultimately the wider IoT?
  3. How can smart device makers optimize logistics and connectivity costs?

How to connect hundreds of millions of objects?

IoT OEMs and Service Providers have traditionally managed multiple SIM configurations and roaming agreements. They also need to know in advance more or less where the product would be sold. This doesn’t just create lots of complexity in terms of logistics but also generates high connectivity costs. Smart device makers are therefore increasingly turning to eSIMs to connect objects at first boot up  to allow them to securely and remotely manage the lifecycle of cellular subscriptions, wherever the machine ends up. A combination of secure hardware and a service platform means that one SIM SKU is all an OEM needs to manage connectivity.

The eSIM connectivity solutions for IoT also have the advantage of bringing certified security and a trusted hardware element that helps save precious space in smaller devices. You can see more on eSIM solutions in a recent blog post by my colleague Antoine Thomas who presented at the eSIM summit at MWC.

Securing the IoT

As the number of connected devices increases, so do the number of threats. Since 5G networks are software defined and provide unique features such as network slicing, virtualization and IoT cloud interworking, new security approaches are required with many elements being built into devices and ecosystem architecture.

One of the flexible approaches for preventing security breaches on show at MWC on the Thales booth was IoT SAFE. By leveraging the eSIM this allows for provisioning of the security credentials (keys and certificate) when the device is booted up and connected to the network for the first time. This protects both the device and the data exchanges with an IoT cloud which will only grow with the wider roll-out of 5G.

A holistic approach to security is required, with next generation solutions to secure devices, data, and to manage device lifecycles as well as protecting the 5G network itself. Some of the key discussions at MWC this year have focused on how the likes of SIMs, eSIM, cellular IoT modules, and other cybersecurity platforms, can provide advanced security for the 5G ecosystem and help unlock its potential.

With connectivity and security taken care of, smart device makers can let their imagination run free.

The post Unlocking the true potential of IoT with 5G appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.