How iSIM is helping businesses to out-think the future SIM innovations are seeing the traditional telecoms model of providing plastic cards replaced by software or device-based alternatives in the form of embedded and integrated SIMs (eSIM and iSIM). This move is about far more than saving money on logistics and SIM trays in devices because it opens up new opportunities to integrate secure device identity with connectivity at the point of manufacture. It also increases the scope to save costs by integrating chipsets, modules and SIM functionality, freeing up device space and reducing manufacturing costs. Operationally, benefits will also accrue as IoT service providers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) stop configuring devices for local markets at the point of deployment and instead integrate SIM functionality in the factory. This also removes the need to replace SIM cards during the life of most devices, enabling switching to new providers and future-proofing devices for the length of their lifecycles.
In addition, iSIM has the potential to help monetise IoT devices by enabling value to be extracted from the implicit integration of the device’s identity and secure connectivity. By doing so, the secure SIM technology is joined to the device identity, thereby creating trust in the device and its data. Trusted data is monetisable data.
Here, Vincent Korstanje, the chief executive of Kigen, tells George Malim, the managing editor of IoT Now, that iSIM’s rapid development means the IoT industry, and in particular, the ecosystem around iSIM is now ready to support customers with simplified, secure, efficient SIM functionality.
George Malim: Five years ago, iSIM was announced and it is now entering the marketplace. How do you reflect on the ways the industry has accepted and adopted iSIM?
Vincent Korstanje: The speed of iSIM development is very interesting. iSIM, on paper, is a small change in the GSMA standards, but one that brings a big change. As an industry our role is to make it easier for OEMs to move from eSIM to iSIM to unlock entirely new security use cases and applications. The pace of iSIM demonstrates how the industry is moving faster towards this goal.
It took 22 years for SIM and 12 years for eSIM to become mass-market, OEM-mandated technology in volume but within five years, iSIM products are coming to market. It’s particularly pleasing for us because Kigen was formed to make this a reality, and today, our ecosystem is thriving.
We are now benefiting from the flywheel effect in iSIM, inspired by Amazon’s success model of ecosystems. This sees the module makers, the OEMs, the mobile network operators (MNOs) and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), and the silicon chip makers committing to iSIM. Growth starts with the chip makers putting the hardware on chips, and the more chip makers you have doing this, the more module makers you have getting involved with eSIM and iSIM on their modules. This, in turn, drives OEM adoption, which creates a need for MNOs and MVNOs to support eSIM and iSIM. So the flywheel continues to spin, gathering momentum as availability drives demand, and the market serves the need for more chips and modules.
GM: How is the ecosystem coming together to assemble the ingredients of the iSIM flywheel effect?
VK: The ecosystem is developing very strongly. Recent examples include Sierra Wireless’s out-of-the-box connectivity offering that utilises embedded universal integrated circuit cards (eUICCs) enabled by our secure eSIM OS and services. Sierra Wireless has publicly stated that it has plans for iSIM-based propositions based on Kigen.
Quectel has also brought its packaged connectivity offerings to the market that brings connectivity to customers alongside its modules and other IoT-related products and services. This makes it easier for customers to access certified, already-bundled solutions. We certainly see that, since 2020, the industry and OEMs have widely asked for more pre-packaged offerings, so it’s a real credit that module and chipset providers have been able to respond so quickly.
We’ve supported this demand with major players such as Murata Semiconductors and Sercomm, and many more are considering similar moves. What’s exciting is that choice of hardware is now readily available for anyone who wants to take advantage of secure connected device manufacture at scale.
GM: How is this availability of hardware supporting networks and resulting in product?
VK: We already discussed the demand iSIM adoption generates for MVNOs and MNOs. When it comes to IoT, it’s not just traditional networks that are benefiting. For example, we have been working together with Skylo, to make it easy for OEMs to integrate satellite connectivity via non-terrestrial networks into cellular modules with no change in hardware or processes. As the move from eSIM to iSIM is also a standards-based transition, they have already been able to demonstrate satellite connectivity on Flex’s iENBL hardware. For devices where relying on cellular networks alone could be problematic, for instance for tracking temperature sensitive shipment assets, this eliminates the gaps in coverage that global deployments encounter.
iSIM also offers greater simplification for products that have constrained space and power. One of the first iSIM enabled innovations has been a cellular-connected printed label that can be printed on the factory dispatch units and stay connected for one or two years in transit or storage, based on the Sony Altair iSIM chipset. Now in use in multiple countries, it is an example of how new and unique use cases can support true digital transformation goals for companies and entire sectors. This is how we are going around the circle faster and faster and generating and gaining from the flywheel effect I described earlier.
GM: What advantages does iSIM have over eSIM?
VK: iSIM has massive benefits in IoT because the advantages that eSIM brought are now accelerating into iSIM. iSIM means you can go from having three chips to one by combining the radio and the SIM in a chip. The more integrated something is, the more you can rely on what’s there. Usually, you put functions on the lowest common denominator, but with more integration, there is much more you can do on the chip. The other advantage is that iSIM allows more to be put into smaller devices because the form factor of fewer chips and no plastic SIM card is far smaller. For us, the SIM is the start. It’s a very interesting crypto vault that allows you to do different things with very high-security mobile infrastructure. eSIM and iSIM enable true end-to-end certificate-based security not just on the SIM but on the device. This will have substantial applications in regulated markets in particular.
GM: How important is it that iSIM binds the identity of the device to its connectivity?
VK: This should not be underestimated. The value of taking data from a smart meter signed by eSIM or iSIM in the IoT SAFE app and having strong trust that the data is proven secure and not hacked is immense. Knowing that the device is on the network and is authenticated enables data from it to be trusted and to have value.
If you want trusted data from which you can make conclusions in sectors like health, for example, it’s very important that it hasn’t been tampered with. In services like electric vehicle charging, which are becoming more sophisticated, assurance that the data has not been hacked is paramount. The iSIM becomes the basis of the device’s identity and adds value to the data coming off the device.
GM: Has the IoT industry had a lightbulb moment that has now put iSIM into the mainstream?
VK: I think it’s happening. iSIM changes the business model, and the new model has obvious benefits. Previously, if you had a smart meter and you wanted to change the SIM, you had to send someone to change it, which doesn’t work at scale. Another reason now is the cost of modules which has to come down. If a module on a label is US$40 that has to be much lower for many use cases to work. Lower-cost radio technology in the form of Cat-M and NB-IoT cellular is part of that and provides a lower-cost alternative to 5G, which most IoT apps don’t need.
iSIM contributes to the overall goal of IoT of reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO). At the same time, we are getting smaller and smaller modules and fewer chips in devices, which has the benefit of reducing the form factor, enabling deeper integration and reducing power usage. These advantages will help accelerate the market. I think there is generally good awareness of what iSIM can do. We are working very closely with module makers and the next step is to build up in-factory provisioning, so devices don’t need a global bootstrap to start connectivity. We’re also working with leading operators in every region to ensure the device isn’t restricted to one carrier when it goes out the door.
Take, for example, a device can leave a factory in Shanghai and auto-roam until it reaches its point of deployment in Rotterdam, at which point it joins the KPN network. You can have connectivity everywhere and we need to focus attention not just on eSIM and iSIM but on the ability to make it work. That’s what the market wants and what we’re enabling.
There are multiple ways to make iSIM more accessible. Module makers are increasingly bundling in connectivity, and this gives OEMs more choices and takes away the burden of managing connectivity. The idea of iSIM is all about growing the market share of cellular connectivity and a great example is the offerings I spoke about earlier from Sierra Wireless, which set out how smart connectivity will be bundled in with iSIMs in the future.
GM: What role would you like governments to take in support of iSIM?
VK: I don’t think they need to take a specific stance with iSIM as such, but they do have a role to play regarding the implementation of security standards. When it comes to certifications, governments should advise that high-security standards need to be implemented for use cases such as health. This should involve standards-based security with protected profiles specified to the same level as smart cards, which are the starting point for these next-generation SIM technologies.
The iSIM is an operating system to provide that functionality and governments should set out higher standards and define areas to which they should be applied. By doing so, they will address security today and in the future.
GM: What’s next for Kigen?
VK: We’re still very active and focused on our core offerings and what OEMs should be doing to bake secure ID into their products. When we started on this journey, security seemed to be an afterthought, and that is changing. What is clear is that the SIM supply chain is changing, for example, from having a chip maker and a module maker and a SIM and connectivity provided by an operator, to a simplified vision where there is a SIM operating system (OS), the chip and the module. Kigen provides the SIM OS, the factory digital key process to secure the ID of the device and the remote SIM provisioning platform to enable connectivity.
iSIM is a software-focused model and that provides flexibility and efficiency that has not been seen before. Hardware partners have chipsets, modules, start-up kits and evaluation boards with which OEMs can access our ecosystem to scale up production. Kigen’s focus is to bring costs down, to work more cost-efficiently in the servers, factory provisioning and in the IoT SAFE secure app. By doing so, we will help enable faster, simpler, more secure IoT connectivity and iSIM use cases that enhance monetisation of IoT.
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