Will The Real ESIM Please Stand Up?

Innovation Will The Real ESIM Please Stand Up? Martin Giess Forbes Councils Member Forbes Technology Council COUNCIL POST Expertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based) Jun 15, 2022, 09:45am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin As CTO and co-founder of EMnify, Martin applies his telecoms expertise to overseeing the technical execution of EMnify ’s product vision.

getty If you are confused about what an eSIM is, then you are likely not alone. There are contradictory definitions and uses of the term on the market today. For us at EMnify, eSIM refers to the remote SIM provisioning ability on physical SIM cards, allowing cellular plans to be activated and maintained more easily than ever before.

For those of us who spend our careers thinking about mobile technology, that’s a real game-changer—not just because it makes it easier to activate your new phone but because it completely changes the terms of engagement for IoT communication. Like many new technologies, though, eSIM has to some extent, become a victim of its own success: The more excited we get, the more blurred our collective understanding. There is a lot of misinformation out there about eSIM—in particular when it comes to M2M usage.

With new tech discoveries, developments and optimizations competing daily for the innovation spotlight, it is increasingly important to be judicious about what hype we buy into. So, let’s take a look behind the curtain and find out exactly what eSIM means for today’s businesses. What is eSIM? At its core, eSIM is a radically simple but extremely powerful concept: a system for digitizing and virtualizing the tech needed to activate and connect cellular devices.

However, there are a few important layers of complexity behind that straightforward definition. And this is where things get blurry. MORE FOR YOU Google Issues Warning For 2 Billion Chrome Users Forget The MacBook Pro, Apple Has Bigger Plans Google Discounts Pixel 6, Nest & Pixel Buds In Limited-Time Sale Event First, it’s important to distinguish between consumer eSIM technologies and machine-to-machine (M2M) eSIM solutions.

Consumer eSIM is used in devices like phones, laptops or tablets, enabling consumers to activate their devices and connect to one or multiple operator platforms, with no integration needed between operators. M2M eSIM focuses on serving the needs of businesses in the Internet of Things (IoT) market, which typically operates sprawling fleets of M2M or IoT devices that need to be connected in order to communicate with each other or with their operator. Why does that matter? Well, consumer-facing eSIM is a convenience.

But M2M eSIM is a game-changer. Using an embedded universal integrated circuit card (eUICC) to enable eSIM functionality, IoT devices can join or switch mobile network operators (MNOs) over the air (meaning remotely) in order to streamline deployment and dramatically lower the lifetime cost of operating an IoT fleet. Using an eSIM solution also complements existing multi-IMSI technology—that’s, “multiple international mobile subscriber identities.

” Previously, IMSI profiles and rules on a physical SIM were programmed once and then quite difficult to change. Combined with eSIM, however, we can now change or update these profiles so customers can always enjoy the best coverage and pricing combination—an important step for global IoT because it allows a single device to maintain the credentials needed to connect flexibly to multiple different networks on an as-needed basis. What is worth the hype? And what is not? So far, so good.

But while it’s true that eSIM is a big deal, especially in enterprise and M2M applications, the buzz surrounding the technology has led to a few misapprehensions about what eSIM technologies can and can’t do—even among the business decision-makers responsible for rolling out and maintaining their organization’s IoT device fleet. Here are three of the key mistaken beliefs we see when people talk about eSIM. 1.

“I can change operators anytime. ” It’s easy to see why people believe this. The whole point of eSIM is that it makes it possible to change operators at the touch of a button—right? Well, not so fast.

Current eSIM technologies for IoT and M2M applications allow connectivity to be managed remotely, true. But it also requires significant integration to enable remote provisioning and manage different SIMs across different network operator profiles. The bottom line: Even in an eSIM world, changing operators is far from straightforward.

Be wary of providers that claim otherwise. 2. “eSIM is cheaper than SIM.

” People generally assume that virtual tech is cheaper than tech that requires hardware, and to some extent, that’s true of eSIM. Certainly, over time many users will save money by streamlining deployment and maintenance, especially if they’re scaling their IoT device fleet to enterprise levels or communicating across borders. On the other hand, regular SIMs typically have much lower upfront costs, especially for businesses with complex eSIM integration needs.

The benefits of eSIM accrue over time as users leverage their ability to update devices remotely, keep them operating and eliminate the need for expensive field trips to physically swap SIMs. 3. “eSIM lets me pick any available networks.

” It is true that the combination of eSIM and multi-IMSI allows IoT businesses to switch and leverage multiple readily available SIM profiles while keeping costs and technical complexities to a minimum. Even then, though, the business will still work with a single main vendor. In fact, most IoT connectivity providers now have relationships with third-party IMSI sponsors to facilitate network access around the world.

Ideally, these IMSI sponsor agreements should go together with direct agreements—delivering both broader coverage and more control over network access. Conclusion So are we all wrong to have gotten so excited about eSIM technologies? Not at all. The reality is that for a certain subset of IoT businesses, eSIM will be truly transformative, enabling them to grow faster, spend less and deliver better products and services for their customers.

If your business aims for global reach, if you deploy large fleets of IoT devices in remote or hard-to-reach areas or worry about unforeseeable network coverage and pricing changes that will hamper your IoT businesses, then eSIM could be a game-changer for your organization. The key is to be clear-eyed about what M2M eSIM technologies can and can’t do. These technologies won’t be right for everyone.

But for a certain class of IoT vendors, the eSIM revolution offers a vision of a better future, with a truly remote device and connectivity management across the entire IoT product lifecycle. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify? Follow me on LinkedIn .

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