Sierra Wireless, a provider of integrated end-to-end solutions for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, introduced an eUICC (Embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card) solution for its global Smart SIM and connectivity service.
It is said to be one of the first to market that conforms to the latest GSMA specification, ensuring global interoperability across hardware vendors, SIM vendors and operators.
“Machina Research forecasts that annual sales of IoT SIMs supporting eUICC will grow from less than one million in 2014 to 227 million devices per year by 2024, representing almost 50% of all SIMs sold,” said Godfrey Chua, principal analyst, Machina Research. “With its strong position in cellular IoT, Sierra Wireless is well positioned to benefit from the opportunity we see associated with IoT connections that depend on eUICC.”
Also commonly referred to as eSIM, eUICC allows users to remotely provision and change service providers over the air (OTA) without physically accessing the SIM card.
This provides a global, operator-independent connectivity solution, which is critical for tomorrow’s IoT use cases because it enables:
- Flexibility to control subscription cost, coverage and service level for the entire lifecycle of the device, which is beneficial for companies in the utility, retail, insurance and healthcare spaces, where devices can be deployed for more than 10 years.
- New service-based IoT business models, allowing global equipment manufacturers, like PC and auto makers, to configure every device the same way at the factory and then remotely manage subscriptions to provide better coverage and customer service wherever the device lands and is operated.
- Remote provisioning to access the best subscription options for a given region, which helps businesses in transportation, telematics and other sectors, where crossing borders results in higher costs.
“eUICC represents the most radical change in over two decades of cellular connectivity, because it allows customers to select and change service provider profiles based on the criteria or business rules of their choosing,” said Andrew Brown, executive director, Enterprise and IoT Research, Strategy Analytics. “This allows businesses to think globally and expand their offerings from products to connected services.”
The Sierra Wireless AirVantage® IoT Platform, Smart SIM and Connectivity Service provide all of the IoT infrastructure needed to create, deploy and manage IoT solutions, said the company. “Sierra Wireless is focused on providing maximum flexibility to our customers and making it simple for them to access the best connectivity anywhere in the world based on the needs of their IoT use cases,” said Emmanuel Walckenaer, senior vice president, Cloud and Connectivity Services Business Unit at Sierra Wireless. “Our vision is to remove barriers for customers by taking the complexity out of connectivity thereby enabling the possibility of countless new business models and applications.”
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