eUICC next step towards multi-carrier, multi-platform IoT

The embedded universal integrated circuit card (eUICC) introduces a means for organisations to evade the traditional constraints of subscriber identification module (SIM) cards issued by mobile network operators under cellular connectivity contracts. These contracts have required organisations to replace operator SIMs if they wish to change provider but eUICCs enable organisations with greater flexibility and control. Here, Evan Whitelock, a product manager at Aeris, tells  how eUICCs can provide organisations with greater flexibility and control of their connectivity, especially as volumes ramp up to mass scale.

IoT Now: What do you see as key eUICC benefits?

Evan Whitelock: eUICC obviously is a hot topic in today’s IoT world, especially around cellular connections. I think that’s because of the potential the technology can deliver. The value to the customer lies in the incredible flexibility eUICC enables, which will manifest itself in different ways, according to the characteristics of specific deployments.

The most obvious of these is service assurance. In yesterday’s world, you would take SIM cards from a provider and then, for better or worse, you would be locked in to that provider for, in many cases, the life of the device. Even though connectivity contracts typically are not as long as the expected lives of IoT devices, the cost of sending someone to go and switch the SIM card would defeat the purpose of changing connectivity providers. Put simply, the cost of changing a SIM outweighs any savings or service gain offered by an alternative provider.

A key eUICC benefit, therefore, is to be able to switch to an alternative provider with better service or rates and to not get locked in to an existing provider as rate reductions continue elsewhere. Don’t forget there’s a race to the bottom on price going on in the cellular market and no one should be committed to paying last year’s – higher – price. It’s also important to recognise that as more and more deployments grow to the point where real scale exists, organisations have greater buying power and can take advantage of lower cost connection rates. To take advantage of that, the flexibility offered by eUICC will be vital.

However, not all the benefits of eUICC are reality yet. This is a new technology and, while it is standardised, there has been hesitancy on the part of cellular carrier partners to dive into this. Sometimes, communication of the benefits has been overdone. For example, being able to optimise coverage based on which network has the best coverage at a given time in a given location is not quite here yet, although that capability soon will be available.